


Book 





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The Cup of Fire 


By 

FRANKLIN HAMILTON 

w 


“I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds; 

Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds 
From the hid battlements of Eternity.” 

— The Hound of Heaven. 


(Emromatt : 

JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 

Igork: 

EATON AND MAINS 





Copyright, 1914, 

By Jennings and Graham 


MAR 23 1914 


©Cl. A 3 7102 3 

K-^3 , 


R jtJ , 




TO 

M. M. H. 













PREFACE. 


In the following pages there will not be 
found an ordered argument with formal 
premise and logical conclusion. The inten- 
tion has been simply to set forth an idea of 
vital and varied implications. Closer study 
of this idea leads to a consideration of di- 
verse fields of thought and human relation. 
Properly speaking, the discussion might be 
termed a suggestion in the Life of the 
Spirit. This suggestion takes its start and 
finds initial expression in a consideration of 
the culture of the present day. Incidentally, 
there is an examination of the pretensions 
of naturalistic culture, of the New Human- 
ism, as sometimes it is called. This New 
Humanism lays claim to the New Hellen- 
ism. But the fatal flaw in such claim is the 
fact that the New Humanism overlooks and 
quite ignores the Moira or divine over- 
ruling Fate of the ancient Hellenists. The 
thin, starved soul-teaching of the New 
5 


PREFACE. 


Humanism is due to its minimizing, or to 
the utter absence in it, of this ever-pres- 
ent, inescapable World-Ground or Readjust- 
ing Power to whose mysteries man hastes. 
The full recognition of man’s relation to 
the Moira steadies the Greek poets. It 
renders their work immortal. The New 
Idealism that more and more is engrossing 
the minds of the thoughtful is one answer 
to the New Humanism. It is more, for 
it is an apprehension of that eternal and 
yet ever-changing spiritual process which 
infills and yet transcends all human experi- 
ence. The supreme expression of this spir- 
itual process is found in the Son of Him 
“who maketh His angels spirits and His 
ministers a flame of fire.” TK'e highest 
reach of non-Christian thought to-day is 
found in the wisdom of the East. But the 
soul of the Far East is impersonality, whereas 
the soul of progress is personality. To be 
effective, to be truth that shall make men 
free, truth must be personalized. The light 
and the life of men, therefore, is the Christ. 
In the following discussion the underlying 
thought is that any system — moral, intel- 
6 


PREFACE. 


lectual, or spiritual — that does not accept 
this fact of the light and life-giving Christ 
as the norm, or indwelling vital principle 
of all its working, will be found to be chaff 
which the wind soon blows away. And 
“the criterion which shows whether a thing 
is right or wrong,” say the pragmatists, “is 
its permanence.” 

It may be objected that a discussion 
that confesses to so inclusive a thought has 
been cast in far too popular a vein. But 
the intention has been to give the book so 
popular a form, if possible, as shall redeem 
it from being a mere academic dissertation. 
Tennyson died with his finger between the 
leaves of Shakespeare. Plato died having 
under his head the comedies of Aristoph- 
anes. Loftiest idealism never must be 
separated from life. The desire has been 
to make this little book simply a fragment 
out of life. It represents gatherings from 
life in the modest thought of helping to set 
forth the central lesson and truth that 
gleam at the heart of life. 

The chapters in Part Three embody 
personal experiences in travel. They are 
7 


PREFACE. 


an outcome of a trip around the world, 
taken for the purpose of studying ethnic 
religions in their relation to Christianity. 
The opinions there set down are to be 
judged in this light. The travel sketches 
are presented with the thought that a first- 
hand description of the conditions and en- 
vironment of some representative pagan re- 
ligious faiths may suggest how far they all 
fall short of satisfying the human spirit. 
They give the lips to drink, but they do 
not quench the thirst of the soul. “When 
that which is perfect is come, then that 
which is in part shall be done away.” This 
is the relentless process in the Life of the 
Spirit. It is only when we return to an 
active, working faith in the true Light and 
Life that we apprehend with all clearness 
how a soul that trusts to any imperfect 
light, to any guidance save that Word 
which was God, will be at the last “One the 
more to baffled millions who have gone be- 
fore.” And yet may it not be worth the 
while to traverse again the old worn paths 
of errant, tragic quests? 

8 


PREFACE. 


“Is the old question answered yet, 

Is the old hunger satisfied? 

May a believing world forget 

The drawn-out line of faiths that died?” 

Our sincere thanks are due to the editors 
of The Methodist Review , The New York 
Christian Advocate , The California Christian 
Advocate, and The Central Christian Advo- 
cate for permission to use here material 
which from time to time has appeared in 
the pages of those journals. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PART I. 

THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 

I. The Golden Cup, - - - - 15 

II. The Chalice of the Spirit of Life, 38 

III. Partaker in the Work of the Spirit, 51 

IV. The Virtue of Magnificence, - - 67 

V. The Glow from the Grail, - - 83 

VI. The Voice and the Prophet for 

To-Day, ------ 103 

PART II. 

“THE WATER- WINE-CUP OF DEATH 
DEDICATION.” 

I. The Angel’s Cup and Francesco Ber- 

NARDONE, ------ 131 

II. Fire-Bringing Minstrels, - - - 149 

III. The Sword of Daimio Kuroda, - - 169 

IV. Sweet Fire for Modern Despair, 199 

11 


CONTENTS. 


PART III. 

CUP BEARERS WHO HAVE INFLUENCED 
THE HUMAN SPIRIT. 

I. “The Magicians of Egypt Did So 

with Their Enchantments,” - - 219 

II. The Oracle of Delphi, - 252 

III. Swamis with Their Fairies, - - 269 

IV. Mystics of the Sacred Dragon, - 290 

PART IV. 

DRINKING THE CUP. 

I. Sick Souls and the Crucifix, - - 319 

II. Pro Nobis Lacrim^e Christi, - - 334 

III. The Shepherd Revelation, — “My 

Cup Runneth Over,” - 348 

IV. “More than Twelve Legions of 

Angels,” ------ 364 


12 


PART I. 

TriE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 

“I sat under an oak , and behold , there came 
a voice out of a bush over against me, and 
said, Esdras, Esdras, and I said. 

Here am I, Lord . And I stood 
up upon my feet ” 


But if thou wilt not believe that in this World all descends or 
comes from the Stars, I will demonstrate it to thee, if thou art 
not a Sot or a Stock, but hast some little Reason and Under- 
standing left, therefore take Notice of that which follows. . . . 

They say, what ails the Fool! when will he have done with 
his Dreaming? This is, because they are asleep in fleshly Lusts. 
Well, well, you shall see what Kind of Dream this will be. — 
Jacob Boehme, Aurora. Chap. 2, v. 12; Chap. 11, v. 150. 


For the message of the Master 
Down the centuries has rolled; 

And the Pilgrims heard the burning word 
Like Evangelists of old; 

In the cabin of the Mayflower, 

When the northwind swept the seas, 

In tongues of flame the message came 
To the women on their knees; 

To the fathers of New England, 

To the bold men of the Bay, 

Who lodged in the lair of the wou and the bear. 
And the redman fierce as they; 


The truth that makes men free — behold, there came 
A prophet with the poet’s noblest art. 

In stature like a giant, and in heart 
Wide as the world, with lips and soul aflame 
Christ and His Church forever to proclaim; 
Impetuous, kingly, true, whose very name 
Wrought righteousness, whose sweet and surging voice 
Lifted the saddened soul to wonder and rejoice. 

The truth that makes men free. 

—President LeB. R. Briggs, Phi Beta Kappa Poem. 


CHAPTER I. 


THE GOLDEN CUP. 

A prophet is sitting under an oak tree. 
From a bush over against the oak tree 
comes a voice, “Esdras, Esdras!” The 
prophet answers “Here am I, Lord!” And 
he stands up on his feet. The prophet is 
commanded to take with him five scribes 
and to go into the desert. He obeys. “And 
it came to pass on the morrow that lo, a 
voice called me, saying, ‘Esdras, open thy 
mouth and drink that I give thee to drink.’ 
Then opened I my mouth, and behold there 
was reached unto me a full cup, which was 
full, as it were, with water, but the color 
of it was like fire. And I took it and drank : 
and when I had drunk of it, my heart 
uttered understanding, and wisdom grew in 
my breast, for my spirit retained its mem- 
ory .” — (II Esdras , Chap. lJf.) 

The cup which thus came to the Prophet 
Esdras is the most wonderful cup from 
15 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


which man can drink. One draught from 
it made Esdras a master of his age, bearing 
a heavenly enchantment. It is the chalice 
of celestial fire and quickening. Whoso 
drinks this cup goes through life with a 
burning heart. In the soul of him wells 
eternally the spring of understanding, the 
fountain of wisdom, and the stream of 
knowledge. The color of the cup is the 
mark of its heavenly origin. It was this 
picture, doubtless, that led Jacob Boehme 
to ascribe mystical coloring to the angels, 
declaring that every one receives its color 
from its quality. “Some are of the quality 
of the water, and those are light like the 
holy heaven; and when the light shines on 
them then they look like to a Crystalline 
Sea.” — {Aurora, Chap. 12 , V. 12.) 

Over the entrance to the long bazaar in 
Damascus is carved an image of a cup. It 
is this holy chalice of Hebrew and Christian 
faith and inspiration — mute memorial of a 
vanished day. Above the fret and irk and 
toil of that city of the infidel the cup still 
holds out its promise. The Mussulmans 
long since forgot its presence there. Mean- 
16 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


in g to them it has none. “Allah il Allah,” 
murmur the materialists, stroking their 
beards. 

Poetic religious feeling added a chapter 
to the Esdras story. It is the legend of the 
Holy Grail. There it is pictured how the 
quickening radiance of the cup would have 
vanished from among men had not the 
stainless youth enshrined the Grail anew in 
the flame-girt mount. At heart, the whole 
history of this Cup of Fire is an imaging 
forth of a rather hackneyed truth — “The 
fear of the Lord, lo, that is wisdom, and to 
forsake evil, that is understanding.” Dwell- 
ers in Gath and Ascalon deride the personal 
application of this thought. It is old- 
fashioned. It argues a certain simplicity. 
But through the streets of Ascalon the Es- 
dras cup flashes a denial. No. The ideal- 
ists who drink this cup are not the feeble 
conies of life. What they have quaffed is 
not moral retreat from the battles of life; 
it is conquest; not spiritual quietism, but 
transcendency. “ The Lord is my Shepherd, 
I shall not want. He maketh me to lie 
down in green pastures: He leadeth me be- 

2 17 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


side the still waters. He restoreth my soul.” 
Thus with his harp sang a shepherd who 
had drunk the Cup of Eire. The welling 
fullness from that living song flowed down 
the ages in a pure stream of heavenly sor- 
cery. Ever since it has kissed cold, forgot- 
ten truths to beauty and immortal youth. 
To-day it touches all hearts with its wonder. 
None knows how, yet in the soul it sets 
singing the bird of paradise. 

“Sing on, sweet bird, close hid, and raise 
Those angel stairways in my brain 
That climb from these low-vaulted clays 
To spacious sunshines far from pain.” 

A young man, failing as a teacher in a 
public school, drank of the Cup of Fire and 
went forth as the Sir Galahad of his gener- 
ation, Phillips Brooks. A French artist, 
impoverished, in darkest hour tasted the 
Esdras cup and painted 4 ‘The Angelus.” 
A young lawyer having few clients found at 
his right hand the Cup of Fire and, drink- 
ing, rode to new tasks as the spiritual Uhlan 
of reform, Wendell Phillips. A Swedish 
singer with a broken heart put her lips to 
18 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 

the chalice of her Lord, and into her voice 
crept a weird, ecstatic note that immortal- 
ized Jenny Lind. The daughter of a humble 
farmer, smothering selfish ambition, in the 
Cup of God found the secret of help for 
other humble daughters, and the scroll of 
world-fame blazons her, Mary Lyon. A 
young sailor man, friendless and in trouble, 
followed the gleam of the Grail, and he 
was made a shining window to which came, 
like doves to be fed, sailor lads from six 
continents, for he was Father Taylor, the 
Sailor Preacher. To many diverse folk this 
sailor preacher was the one interest called 
up by the name of a city boasting herself 
as one of the world centers of light and 
learning. A Boston journalist, writing home 
from the scene of the Messina earthquake, 
says that he found the walls of the city 
prison broken and three escaped convicts 
outside. The journalist had a cauliflower. 
The convicts had a jar of wine. All were 
hungry. On the suggestion that they cook 
the cauliflower in the wine and all dine to- 
gether, they built a fire to prepare the feast. 
While waiting for the repast, one of the 
19 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


convicts, an old man who had traveled 
everywhere and had the gift of tongues, 
asked the newcomer where was his home. 
The journalist answered, “Boston.” “Ah,” 
said the old convict, “I had a friend there; 
I wonder if he is still alive. He was Father 
Taylor, the Sailor Preacher.” The dweller 
in Gath might note that comment — “I had 
a friend!” 

There are other cups from which men 
drink. Their names are known — The Cup 
of Trembling, the Cup of Wrath and Indig- 
nation, the Cup of Astonishment and Des- 
olation, the Golden Cup full of Abomina- 
tions and Filthiness, the Cup in which the 
Wine is Red and Full of Mixture, the Cup 
of Devils. These chalices find their parable 
in that story concerning Mohammed. The 
father of the faithful, as a young man, 
once tasted poison at the hand of a friend. 
Detecting the deadly potion, the prophet 
put from him the beaker. Seemingly he 
was saved. But long after, Mohammed, 
when dying, clutched his agonizing breast 
and exclaimed, “The veins of my heart are 
throbbing with the poison of Khiber!” 

20 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 

Life is full of moral illusion. It is not 
easy, always, to distinguish the Cup of God 
from the poison of Khiber. For it is one 
of the mysteries of the human spirit that 
side by side with the angel of light there 
rises another angel. And to our lips he 
holds a chalice. He swears that it is the 
Draught Divine. This cup is full, as it 
were, with water, but the color of it is like 
fire. Men drink of this cup, saying to their 
hearts, “It is the Cup of God.” 

Wolfgang von Goethe drank from this 
cup — Goethe, the high priest of modern 
humanism; Goethe, who, from his view- 
point, lived a life so fair that when this 
pontifex illuminatus of his age was laid out 
for burial, a friend, beholding the body, 
burst into tears, because the dead man 
seemed so like a Greek god. But Goethe, 
unwittingly, to use a vulgarism, has given 
the show away. He has told a tale in which 
his chalice is self-revealed. It is that fa- 
miliar picture of the visit of Faust and his 
hellish mentor to the wine-cellar. The wine 
which Mephistopheles draws for the rois- 
terers is wreathed with a bouquet of the 
21 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


gods. With seductive kiss, it beckons at 
the margin of gleaming crystal. But the 
ruby drink, spilling upon the ground, turns 
to sulphurous flame. Mephisto charms 
away the flame with a word — “Be quiet, 
friendly element!” To the revelers, with a 
leer, he says, “A bit of purgatory ’t was 
for this time merely.” 

A bit of purgatory it always is. The 
wide-visioned artist soul of Goethe was por- 
traying for all time the radiant cup which 
his humanistic culture holds to the lips of 
men. It matters little that the search of 
the Weimar poet sage for knowledge was so 
ardent that, even in dying, he drew finger 
pictures in the air as he murmured, “More 
light.” Still less matters the contention of 
such humanism that “Where there is the 
tree of knowledge there is always Paradise.” 
For this is “ the stereotyped contention of 
serpents, both ancient and modern.” As 
Nietzsche profoundly remarks, “It is ter- 
rible to die of thirst at sea. Is it necessary 
that you should so salt your truth that it 
will no longer quench thirst?” 

The illuminating fact here is that this 
22 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


cup of Goethe is the cup of Cagliostro. This 
French Magus once put to the lips of an 
old man a drop or two of the cordial of 
immortality. The octogenarian became 
young. The years of strength returned. 
He sang and danced. He lived again the 
dear memories of amorous folly. But all 
too soon his was an aching brain. For 
roses he had ashes. 

The cup of Goethe is that cup of the 
juggler holding a charmed snake, — the 
chased golden bowl from which sprang the 
long black train of misfortune which caused 
the collapse of the Second Crusade. It is 
a goblet dipped in the cauldron of the 
witches which Macbeth saw in a cavern, 
amid thunder. It was as if the dreamer 
who had dreamed Faust, was lifting the 
curtain which hides the flame-cauldron of 
man’s disobedience and the fruit of that 
forbidden tree which “ brought death and 
sin into the world.” Under the lifted cor- 
ner of the curtain the soul catches only a 
glimpse when the curtain falls, but it suf- 
fices. Memory laments forever. 

The cup of the creator of Mephistopheles 
23 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


is the golden cup which John the Divine 
saw in the hand of the woman who was sit- 
ting upon a scarlet-colored beast. Let us 
not be afraid to be old-fashioned, if in old- 
fashionedness any truth is to be found. 
“The devil is shamming dead,” said Charles 
Kingsley, “but he was never more alive 
than now.” Martin Luther well could 
afford to be certain that it was the devil 
at whom he was throwing his inkstand. 
For whether or not there appeared in, the 
Wartburg the orthodox figure of horns, 
hoofs, and tail, all the world now grants 
that sturdy Brother Martin threw good ink 
on many a real devil. And so, as we say, 
let us not fear to be old-fashioned, even in 
our modern interpretations — “So he car- 
ried me away in the spirit into the wilder- 
ness; and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet- 
colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, 
having seven heads and ten horns. And 
the woman was arrayed in purple and scar- 
let color, and decked with gold and pre- 
cious stones and pearls, having a golden 
cup in her hand.” 

A poet has pictured this woman with 
24 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


the golden cup. Sitting alone, absorbed in 
memories, she gazes before her with rapt, 
mysterious eyes. On jewels in her hair 
light breaks into splintered fire. At her 
feet are heaped treasures — rubies, sapphires, 
emeralds, yellow topaz and opal with heart 
of flame. From the shadows voices are 
calling to her, voices of past loves that 
thrill her, but she answers not. None dare 
name her and none may forget her. Around 
her lies the dust of dead empires and of 
vanished races of men. 

At this point we must guard ourselves. 
“ Culture,” says Lowell, “is that which 
alone teaches a man to be four-square, 
capable of holding his own in whatever 
field he may be cast.” The old school-man 
poetically pronounced Culture to be “the 
garden of immortal fruits without dog or 
dragon, yea, a series of king’s gardens, 
whose flowers are flowers of amaranth and 
their fruits fruits of nepenthe.” But these 
both had in mind a spiritualized culture, 
based on a right vision of life. The measure 
of any truth or training is found in its life 
usefulness. “Real culture pounces unerr- 
25 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


ingly upon the human core.” The golden 
test of culture, then, is, Does it work? 
What practical bearing has it on the deeper 
problems of life? Does it bring forth 
practical fruits? 

“The word culture,” declares a dis- 
tinguished educator, “has passed nationally 
through a great change. It used to be thin, 
intellectual, remote, ridiculous. Now it is 
regaining its true sense. It has come to 
denote something that is ‘hitched up close 
to real life.’ ” Genuine culture always has 
been “hitched up close to real life.” Cul- 
ture that is not in closest touch with life 
loses its reason for being. True leaders of 
thought also are leaders in action. One 
might cite Immanuel Kant as illustrating 
the contrary. But Kant’s “Project of Per- 
petual Peace,” put forth at a time when he 
alone in all Europe seemed bold enough for 
such an utterance, disposes of this notion 
concerning Kant. No. True aristocracy 
of brains, as Terence was dreaming it, finds 
its exponents in those who, like Emerson, 
Whittier, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, The- 
odore Parker, Lowell, Wendell Phillips, 
26 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


Henry Ward Beecher, “take a vital interest 
in what transpires in their own day.” 

But more. Not only is genuine culture 
thus allied with life, but also it is suffused 
with personal piety, with a vision of God. 
We are accomplishing our mission when we 
take our talents to the Master of Talents 
and devote them to His service. The only 
culture of permanent meaning is the culture 
that is consecrated. It is not true culture 
at all unless it be dedicated to God. To 
stand the test of life it must, through the 
Christ, be rooted and grounded in God. 
We will accomplish little in the world un- 
less we work in line with God. 

Beyond even this, however, is it true 
that the Life of the Spirit finds greater use 
for the cultured mind than for one of intel- 
lectual penury. The richer the individual 
training, the more available for divine use 
will be the individual life. Channels which 
have been cut deep and fair by patient, 
thorough-going plowshares prove open and 
providential conduits through which the 
waters of Shiloah go softly but resistlessly to 
wonders of quickening and grace. We read 
27 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


of only one of the early disciples who had 
enjoyed the advantages of a training by 
Gamaliel. Was it fortuitously that this 
particular Gamaliel-trained disciple became 
the world protagonist of the new^ faith? 

On this basis proceeding, quickly we 
find that mere humanism, out of which has 
dropped the skyline, is insufficient. Con- 
fronted with life, it does not work. On 
opening a tomb in Egypt some years ago, 
they found a young Egyptian girl with her 
head pillowed on an ancient papyrus copy 
of the Iliad. Around her brow were roses, 
just as her friends had laid her there in 
dreamless sleep nearly two thousand years 
ago. Like Ophelia, in death she wore her 
virgin garlands. A sentimentalist like Tom 
Moore might sing: 

“You may break, you may shatter the vase, if 
you will, 

But the scent of the roses will hang round it 
still.” 

For an immortality of love filled that 
sepulcher with the far-borne fragrance of 
the vanished rose fields of Fayoum. But 
28 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


the blind singer has given us no Odyssey to 
light to eternal bliss. “You might as well 
expect to cure a cold by brushing your 
overcoat as to expect culture to cure the 
soul.” Too often is it the peculiarity of the 
cultivated man that he only apprehends 
with increasing clearness the sadness and 
mystery of the universe. With sensitive 
spirit he fathoms in his own soul the lament, 
“ He hath set me in dark places as they that 
be dead of old. He hath hedged me about 
that I can not get out.” 

It is quite as salient, also, to remind 
ourselves that mere intellectual richness of 
equipment never makes men holy. Lust is 
only the more seductive when it can speak 
with music in its voice. Culture may be 
veiled animalism, gilded barbarism. On 
one page of his book, Benvenuto Cellini 
sweetly may describe the casting of Perseus, 
a masterpiece of the Renaissance. But the 
next page tells quite as enthusiastically of 
debaucheries and the assassination of an 
enemy. Philosophy dignifies, but does it 
regenerate? If it cultivates virtue, does it 
restrain vice? Masters of art and literature 
29 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 

sometimes present types of ethical laxity 
that police courts investigate. Cultivated 
voices are not always oracles of reform. 
The tragic story of a certain celebrated 
architect of New York offers material for 
moralizing. Yet such a case is not unique. 
Oscar Wilde wrote poetry of marked lyric 
quality in Reading Gaol. The crowned 
spider of Belgium, whose Congo rubber got 
him much red gold, loved music and liter- 
ature. In art he was a connoisseur. Was 
it any lack of ability or of astute statecraft 
that took Parnell and Sir Charles Dilke out 
of public life? Poor heartbroken Rachel 
was a great actress. Nero was a very ar- 
dent lover of the fine arts. Lanciani says 
that whenever excavations are made in 
grounds known to have belonged to Nero, 
some genuine work of a Greek master al- 
ways comes to light. Abdul Hamid, of un- 
speakable name and life, was a passionate 
collector of books. He had one of the finest 
Oriental libraries in the world. When Paul 
went to Athens he found the fine arts in 
their perfection and the most brilliant liter- 
ature of the ages. But the apostle turned 
30 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


away from that city in sadness, for he found 
Hellenic culture, “with the atmosphere rank 
and overcharged with Aphrodisiacal odors.” 
Over the decadence of Assyria, Babylon, 
Egypt, and Rome there was woven an ir- 
idescent refinement like a rainbow. The 
novel Salammbo pictures how, when the 
gods of Carthage were dying and the Car- 
thaginian civilization was festering at the 
center, there floated over all a careless 
gayety and radiance of life not unlike those 
of our day. 

But more vital is the fact that a life 
training or vision, out of which has dropped 
the skyline, fails on the higher reaches of 
our own efforts. For, while such mere in- 
tellectual enrichment may sharpen the five 
senses, it not infrequently steals from an 
ambitious heart that feeling after God 
which has been termed the sixth sense. 
The mother of Thomas Carlyle wrote to 
her son in the glory of his intellectual lord- 
ship in London, “Tammie, Tammie, dinna 
lose the Word in the learnin’.” The peasant 
mother was wiser than the lordly son. If 
she had not been to college she had been 
31 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


to Calvary. Thomas Carlyle did lose the 
Word in the learnin’. And 4 ‘that son of 
the morning who was born in the clouds 
was struck by lightning.” So, while we 
need not dwell on the thousands of culti- 
vated men and women who to-day are feel- 
ing the vanity of knowledge and who recog- 
nize the fact that “there is no lasting 
satisfaction in the aesthetic world alone,” we 
can rest our disagreement with the humanist 
on higher grounds. For while he may have 
mastered all art, literature, and science, he, 
all too often, has not got even the tip of 
his chin to the level of that starry thresh- 
old across which drift the filmy lights and 
purple shadows of the healing of God. 

More, however, than all this, a human- 
istic attitude of life, a high mental equip- 
ment that lives not by sympathies and 
admirations, but by dislikes and disdains, 
robs a soul of that capacity for accomplish- 
ment which is the mark of the captaincy of 
life. We need not refer to such a potential 
genius as Amiel, who could write so well 
that finally he dared not write at all. Nor 
need we tell the story of George Waring the 
32 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


Marvelous, a miracle of erudition, who pro- 
duced nothing. At Oxford he well-nigh 
lived in the Bodleian. There he has been 
described by one who knew him as “a re- 
cluse, half-blind, abstracted, muttering his 
wayward fancies in a buzzing voice.” 

The concentrated light and learning of 
the thirteenth century made Pope Innocent 
III the conspicuous man of his age. But 
all that light and learning could not inspire 
him to undertake enterprises that should 
endure beyond the sunset of his own life. 
The great adventure of his time was left 
for the son of a cloth-seller of meager 
intellectual training, but whose lips had 
touched the Cup of Fire. 

The diary of a British naval officer who 
at Trafalgar served on the flagship of Lord 
Nelson, tells of certain sailor lads on board 
who spent much time in prayer, song, and 
“ experience meetings.” The officer believed 
that they were Wesleyan Methodists whose 
peculiar spiritual exercises availed little. 
But the diary adds that in the battle these 
praying lads were the only sailors who did 
their duty without swearing, and that they 
3 33 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 

excelled all others in discipline and forti- 
tude. 

In the anti-slavery contest in America, 
one of the most imperially gifted Northern 
statesmen was incapable of seeing and sym- 
pathizing with the real issue at stake. His 
ultra refined environment and training un- 
doubtedly had much to do with his position 
in the strife. In unhappy retreat from the 
cause of liberty he retired to private life. 
Was it into the place of this man that there 
was lifted another whose every penury of 
circumstance only brought him nearer to 
the sorrows of the downtrodden? Certain 
it is that, passing by the princes, God found 
in a humbler life of restricted chance the 
plastic clay which He needed to mold the 
master-man, the unbreakable altar whereon 
could burn, unquenched to the end, the 
sacred fire of human liberty — Abraham 
Lincoln. 

An old soldier of Stonewall Jackson once 
related to the writer an experience with the 
great Confederate chieftain that is sug- 
gestive in connection with the present 
thought. As a youth the veteran had been 
34 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 

a helper to Major Jackson in the Sunday 
school for colored children which, before 
the war, the major had carried on in the 
Presbyterian Church at Lexington, Virginia. 
When the war broke out the pious superin- 
tendent of the school called together the 
children and said to them that whatever 
happened, he wanted them to promise that 
they still would come to Sunday school. 
The colored boys and girls all cried, “Yes, 
Massa Jackson, we ’ll come to Sunday 
school!” “Time passed,” said my friend, 

whose name was M , “and I had joined 

the cavalry with General Lee. As we came 
up to the second battle of Manassas Junc- 
tion, Lee sent Jackson to flank Pope as he 
came up from the Potomac. But General 
Lee, having lost touch with Jackson, sent 
out some cavalry to which I belonged to 
establish connection with his column. For 
three days we hunted General Jackson, but 
could not find him, so skillful was he in con- 
cealing troops when maneuvering for posi- 
tion. But at last we came out on a wide 
plowed field through which ran a turnpike. 
On our right was a forest, on the left was a 
35 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 

high mass of rocks. Some of our boys went 
up on the rocks and began to try sharp- 
shooting at the Federals, who now could be 
seen coming up the turnpike. At this mo- 
ment out of the forest on our right rode a 
solitary horseman. He was covered with 
dust. His visor was pulled down over his 
eyes. We recognized Stonewall Jackson. 
The general rode up to our commander and 
said, ‘Send some one up to tell those boys 
on the rocks to cease firing. They need- 
lessly are exposing my troops yonder in the 
forest.’ Thousands of seasoned Virginian 
soldiers were lying on their arms under 
cover of the trees. By this time the ad- 
vancing Federals with artillery had got the 
range on the plowed field, which was being 
searched by shrapnel. Our captain turned 
to me and said, ‘Sergeant, go up and tell 
the boys to come down.’ I had galloped 
half way across the field under fire, which 
every moment became closer and more ac- 
curate, when I heard a voice calling ‘ Halt ! ’ 
Turning around, I saw General Jackson 
cantering leisurely toward me. By this 
time, the shrapnel breaking all around us, 
36 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


every moment seemed the last. The gen- 
eral greeted me kindly and, looking me 
steadily in the face, asked, Ts this not 

young M , who used to help me in our 

colored Sunday school back in Lexington?’ 
Saluting, I answered, ‘Yes, General.’ ‘Well,’ 
said the general, ‘I thought it might in- 
terest you to know that only last week I 
received a letter from our preacher in Lex- 
ington, telling me that they still are able 
to keep up the Sunday school.’ Then 
Stonewall Jackson slowly wheeled his horse, 
drew his sword, and led the charge which 
shattered Pope’s column and hurled it back 
toward the Potomac.” “And, by the way,” 
continued the Confederate, his face begin- 
ning to shine as if his inner eye were be- 
holding other scenes, “do you know why 
General Lee lost the battle of Gettysburg? 
It was because it was the first battle that 
he tried to fight without his strong right 
arm, the God-led scholar-soldier of the Con- 
federacy who put prayer into his strategy!” 


37 


CHAPTER II. 


THE CHALICE OF THE SPIRIT 
OF LIFE. 

Over against the masquers that thus offer 
themselves as messengers of light stands the 
angel holding the Cup of Fire. “Drink that 
I give thee to drink,” says the angel, “and 
three things shall be thine.” 

“Drink, and thy heart shall utter un- 
derstanding. Thou shalt have knowledge 
of life. Thou shalt know the secret that 
the only permanent interests in life are 
they that make for the life of the Spirit. 
Drink, then, the cup that I give thee to 
drink.” And between the angels holding 
to our lips, each a full cup, which is full, as 
it were, with water, but the color of it is 
like fire, between these the choice must be 
made. It is the spiritual element involved 
in the choice itself, and in the consequent 
surrender of the direction of life, that makes 
the eternal revelation of us at the moment 
38 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


when we deem ourselves in our choice to be 
the masters of our fate. As an illustration 
of this, the story of the city of Venice is a 
luminous commentary. There, as John 
Ruskin has pointed out, we behold, as in a 
mirror, how our own prosperity cheats us. 
The very happiness of our own easy con- 
quest of things leads us often, almost as if 
in mockery, spiritually to miss the mark. 
Ruskin well has told the story. Copying 
the picture which he gives, note the para- 
phrase of his own peculiar and vivid speech : 
“There at her right hand, in the square be- 
side the sea, gleamed the shrine of St. 
Mark’s, its sevenfold gates and glowing 
domes forever proclaiming the twofold 
message, ‘ Christ is risen ! Christ shall 
come!’ Daily those white cupolas rose like 
wreaths of sea foam in the dawn, calling 
to that deepening tumult of pride and sin 
the message that once was written in blood, 
but calling ever in vain. When, in her last 
hours, Venice threw off all shame and all 
restraint, and the great square of the city 
became filled with the madness of the whole 
earth, there, at her right hand, still rose the 
39 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


white domes of that house of God, burning 
with the letters of His law. Mountebank 
and masquer laughed and went their way; 
and a silence has followed them not unfore- 
told. For there, to-day, sits that city, still 
beautiful with her tottering palaces and the 
wild grass waving over unfinished fragments 
of mighty shafts. But there she sits forlorn, 
pallid, haggard, consumed from her place 
among the nations, her ashes choking the 
channels of the dead, salt sea — because she 
forgot God!” 

The distinctive dangers of American civ- 
ilization are penury of character, the dislo- 
cation of capital and labor, the obliteration 
of the responsibilities of wealth, and the 
exposure of men and women to temptation. 
But, let this people drink the Esdras cup as 
once it was drunk by reformed Scotland 
and puritan England, and by the city of 
Florence under the call of the Dominican 
friar, then how quickly the elements of 
our social despair might be fused into some- 
thing fair. Out of the very blackest heart 
of things might be born that white lily 
flower of Brotherhood which was the Christ- 
40 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


dream. Out of our grossest materialism, as 
our richest soil, might come surprising rev- 
elations of character and idealism. When 
the Scots beheld before them Mary Stuart, 
with her cup of enchantment, and John 
Knox, holding out the Chalice of the Spirit 
of Life, they chose John Knox. And in the 
Scottish peasantry for generations we have 
had a race showing a larger output of dis- 
tinguished men in proportion to its num- 
bers than has been seen in any people since 
the time of Athens under Pericles. Then, 
let this nation drink the chalice to which 
Esdras was summoned, and up the bright- 
ening steeps of one corner of the world, at 
least, the Prince of Peace could drive His 
chariot toward that universal conquest by 
Love and Light, which, be it near or far, is 
yet to be the divine culmination of creation. 

But what is true of a city, or of a nation, 
is true of each individual life. Whosoever 
puts from him the Chalice of the angel of 
God and drinks the cup of the witches, for- 
feits the gift sublime, the most precious 
possibility of his existence. It matters not 
what he may achieve of wealth or of culture, 
41 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


of influence or of fame; of little avail are 
his ambitions or his powers. Unless he 
heeds the voice of the angel — “Drink, and 
thy heart shall utter understanding,” he will 
find at the last that his treasures are like 
the bright pebbles from the Yellowstone 
springs — in fading, they simply have burned 
out his pockets. He may write poetry, or 
heap up money, or pronounce orations, or 
win the love of fair women, or conquer and 
rule, and still, at the end, there will be 
tears. At this point the life of the Spirit 
is relentless. Men always must divide into 
two camps — one called to dazzling destiny, 
the other fated to bondage and the fiery 
hail. Here is the eternal revelation of our- 
selves. Here we shall drink indeed of His 
cup. 

“Drink,” says the angel, “and wisdom 
shall grow in thy breast!” Knowing life, 
we shall be able to discern what are its 
lofty fulcrums for human effort. The notion 
that earthly greatness is desirable needs not 
for its negation any such secret annal as 
that which Lockhart gives of Napoleon 
Bonaparte crying out and refusing comfort 
42 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


or companionship all through the night in 
the wretched weaver’s hut on the retreat 
from Moscow. There is not required the 
later testimony of the fallen conqueror at 
St. Helena, that the happiest hour in all 
his life was when, as a little lad, he took his 
first communion in Ajaccio. As with soap 
bubbles, so with life, the most iridescent 
prizes are the thinnest. The peace propa- 
ganda to-day would receive reinforcement 
if all soldiers could study Pierre Loti’s pic- 
ture of military glory. It is the end of his 
spahi, or lancer — a gallant, gay, French 
lancer, who on prancing charger had ridden 
to clang of cymbal, who had sung and 
feasted and wooed many a lady. And lo, 
now an unburied skull, an empty, grinning 
skull which the Sirocco, blowing pitilessly 
across Sahara, rolls over the desert sands, 
over and over and over again. 

But here we discover a paradox. Drink- 
ing this chalice of oblivion to all selfish am- 
bitions, it is found that the celestial fire has 
quickened to a larger efficiency. Humblest 
mortals, often, are inspired to write, to 
sing, to carve, to paint, to build, to dream, 
43 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


to captain the causes of humanity. One 
whom others despised, or little noted, at- 
tains to soul-captaincy, projects his effi- 
ciency forward into the millenniums. Ages 
after, when the doer is buried and his name 
is merged into the centuries, mankind still 
will be moved by his melody, floating to it 
from the choir invisible, whose music is the 
gladness of the world. 

Some one has made the remark that 
“never was there a more sudden case of the 
rejected stone becoming the headstone of 
the corner than the raising of John Brown 
of Osawatomie from the position of a gib- 
beted felon to that of a people’s deliverer.” 
That remark overlooks the fact that it was 
because the lowly sheep herder had put 
his lips to the Esdras cup that “the Al- 
mighty found a holy and transforming use 
for the tempest that stirred the soul of 
John Brown.” But the same thought ap- 
plies to the extraordinary change that has 
come over the Northern feeling toward the 
Confederate soldier. It is beginning to be 
recognized that, whatever may have been 
the differences of opinion and of tradition, 
44 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


the gray covered as devoted hearts as the 
blue. Henry Grady’s pathetic picture of 
the Confederate veteran, returning to the 
old plantation to follow the plow in the 
wonted furrow, but with a new feeling for 
the old flag above his head and with a new 
dream of the common country in his heart, 
is one of the tenderest touches of idealism 
in American speech. And this lofty, self- 
effacing idealism has been the mark of 
every real American heart from the hour 
when the pilgrim first drew his shallop 
alongside of Plymouth Rock. It has been a 
yearning to triumph over the material, but 
with this yearning ever has been linked a 
firm faith in a providential destiny. 

This was the deeper meaning of the 
American Civil War. And because of this 
deeper meaning the sacrifice of the soldiers 
who, on both sides, died, will live on for- 
ever as a holy memory, a celestial welding 
of the reunited nation. Of the millions who, 
at the call of their country, thus gave them- 
selves to flying bullets and to flashing steel, 
many sleep where they fell, on every field 
of the South. Their bones whiten on scat- 
45 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


tered hillsides. Some lie unmarked, un- 
known, hard by the lonely ford, where all 
unnoticed the pacing sentinel fell. Others 
slumber in forest glen where soughing winds 
alone know the resting place. “An acre or so 
of thicket or of swamp bayou was to them 
Chancellorsville, Vicksburg, Chickamauga.” 
Only the hawk keeps tryst. None but the 
brook brings tears of lamenting. But cen- 
turies hence, wherever one of these graves 
may be found, the traveler pausing beside 
it will hear, with inner ear, a Voice calling 
to him, “Go, stranger, thou that passest 
by, and tell my country that we lie here, 
having obeyed her word!” 

“Drink,” says the angel, “and thy 
spirit shall retain its memory.” One of the 
poets has said that when we are born into 
this earthly existence we come from an- 
other country, trailing clouds of glory do 
we come from God, who is our home. Too 
few remember that we still belong to this 
other country. It is only when we drink 
the Cup of Fire that we are born back into 
that transcendency of spirit whereby we 
realize and are fain to claim our true inher- 
46 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


itance. For then we pierce the veil invis- 
ible. We read the secret which was before 
the foundation of the world. We under- 
stand that the true greatness and real value 
of human life come only through the life of 
the Spirit, which is the fabric of the uni- 
verse. Thus what appears to be earthly 
success is often only the erasing of the 
heavenly lineaments. It is celestial failure. 
On the other hand, what appears to be sad 
and shameful human breakdown is some- 
times success. It is radiant, immortal cor- 
onation. When D’Artagnan, dying, took 
his last farewell of the Three Guardsmen, to 
Athos and Porthos, who through hard cir- 
cumstance had preserved loyalty, he said, 
“Athos, Porthos, farewell, till we meet 
again.” But to Aramis, who, while having 
come to high place, had forsworn himself, 
to him the dying D’Artagnan said, “Aramis, 
adieu forever!” 

The supreme example of the errancy of 
earthly standards is found in the contempt 
of Pontius Pilate when confronted with the 
Kingdom of the Spirit. At one of the pre- 
sentations of the passion play at Oberam- 
47 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


mergau, it was the remarkable fortune of 
the writer to witness a scene wherein nature 
herself seemed to lend her approval to the 
confusion of the Roman procurator. The 
morning had been bright and unclouded. 
But, as the trial of Jesus began, there 
gathered behind the peaks above the vil- 
lage one of those Alpine storms which 
periodically descend, with amazing sudden- 
ness, upon the valley of the Ammer. Soon 
the white cross on the Koffelsberg, which 
marks the dedication of the village in 
thanksgiving, was banked in with inky 
clouds. Only the cross gleamed snow-white 
against the blackness. Pilate contempt- 
uously had flung out like a jeer his ques- 
tion, “What is truth?” Jesus answered 
him never a word. But up toward the cross 
on the Koffelsberg the King turned His face. 
Instantly out of the inky storm-wrack 
leaped dazzling lightning. Like shining 
fingers out of heaven the lambent flame in 
jagged lines played for a moment around 
the cross, as if writing. In the blackness 
and crash which followed a pious parish 
priest by my side fell upon his knees and 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


began to tell his beads and murmur prayers. 
Little imagination was required to conjure 
up the figure of Pilate, as the Swiss peasants 
say he is to be seen on their mountain on 
Good Friday eve, washing his hands always 
and lamenting, “ O for a vision of that 
Face!” But the poor tormented soul is 
answered not at all. Nor was it hard to 
fancy on the cross of the Koffelsberg, where 
now raged the wild tempest in all its fury, 
the Figure that once was marred for the sins 
of the race. A voice seemed to say, “I have 
finished the work which Thou gavest Me to 
do. And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me.” 

In old age, after much sorrow, heartache, 
and disillusion, Wolfgang von Goethe 
learned the secret of the Cup of Fire. 
When the sunset was wrapping his own life 
in mystic shadows and voices were calling 
to him from many a corner of memory, the 
poet wrote the second part of Faust to tell 
to others the secret ere he died. It is that 
long, metaphysical part of Faust, the celes- 
tial part, which so few of us ever read. 
There the revelation is made. There it is 
pictured how Faust the wanderer, having 
^ 49 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 

run the gamut of all the pleasures and 
achievements of life, awakens at last to 
realize that through all emerges his soul, 
hungry, despairing, turning back dead spent 
for heavenly help. Pontius Pilate had 
heeded not the angel who, coming down 
over the Judean mountains, and holding out 
the Chalice of the Spirit of Life, had cried 
to him, “Pontius Pilate, Pontius Pilate !” 
But into the forfeited soul of the lover of 
Margaret, Goethe now puts back the celes- 
tial craving. The weary, punished heart 
homes like a dove back to the Father’s 
house. The sky opens. Angels cast down 
roses which for the tempter change to blis- 
tering, burning, corroding coals of fire. Me- 
phistopheles is driven back to the Gehenna 
whence he came. There are heard divine 
voices. Then appears Margaret, symbol of 
the eternal saving pity of God. And Faust, 
purified, redeemed by that transcendency 
of the Spirit which once more irradiates 
him with shining, heavenly possession, 
mounts upward, while the voices chant a 
mystic, haunting song of pity and the 
might of love illimitable. 

50 


CHAPTER III. 


PARTAKER IN THE WORK OF THE 
SPIRIT. 

“When I had drunk the Cup of Fire,” says 
the Prophet Esdras, “my heart uttered un- 
derstanding.” This is one of the dark say- 
ings of the prophet. The thought partakes 
of the metaphysical reasoning of Spinoza in 
its spiritual implications. Spinoza held that 
God alone can effect a junction between 
thought and extension. Mind and matter, 
therefore, have a common ground in God. 
But Spinoza felt the influence of .the Men- 
nonites and Collegiants who deemed the 
dogmatic element of religion inferior to the 
edifying and the moral. He was impressed 
especially by their “pure ideal of duty.” 
He also had sympathy with the Arminians. 
Scientific relations, it is true, he had with 
the reckless materialist Van den Eude, with 
Huyghens, Boyle, and Oldenburg. But 
deeper than all physics was the search of 
51 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


the lense-grinding philosopher. The Infi- 
nite was his beginning and end. To know 
aright, said he, we must turn back to the 
Infinite. To understand the laws of knowl- 
edge itself, to grasp the workings of the 
mind, or to lay hold on the processes of the 
universe and share in its purposes, we alike 
still must go back to God — in the beginning, 
God. 

Without going into a detailed statement 
of the system of Spinoza as it bears on our 
problem, we ought, perhaps, to add one 
further word of explanation. Spinoza sought 
to elaborate two doctrines — one of God, the 
other of mind and matter. Of these the 
first is the result of his study of Jewish 
Theism, Giordano Bruno, and the semi- 
pantheistic philosophy. The second is taken 
from the Cartesian dualism. The mind of 
Spinoza, deeply imbued with Jewish learn- 
ing, was attracted by Descartes’ bold logic 
and independent method, by his close anal- 
ysis and spirit of scientific curiosity, espe- 
cially on its physical side. Spinoza, how- 
ever, possessed a nature “ deeply attuned to 
Idealism.” While, therefore, we may say 
52 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


that on one side of his system, the scientific, 
he reached straight back to Cartesianism, 
on the other side of his system, the monistic 
side, his thought was clearly a reaction from 
Cartesianism. Conjoined with these two 
sides of his thought was always a third, 
the mystic side, inherited from Giordano 
Bruno and Jewish teachers like Avicebron. 
And here was the key to all mysteries. 

The poetic figure of Esdras reveals a 
similar mystic dependence upon the In- 
finite as the source and world-ground not 
only of understanding, but also of personal 
self-conscious identity. The basis of per- 
sonal existence, the foundations of knowl- 
edge, and a true understanding of the uni- 
verse itself, all are found only through a 
right fellowship with God. This conception 
is attuned deeply to the new idealism. It 
promises a satisfactory answer to the riddle 
of existence. It is a solution to the episte- 
mological problem. It answers the cry and 
yearnings of faith. In pure thought it is 
defensible. 

If, at this point, we venture to call at- 
tention to some reasons for our contention, 
53 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


it is only in order that we may suggest how 
dependent on the life of the Spirit we all are 
for any rational explanation of our thoughts, 
or indeed for any ultimate significance that 
may attach to our individual lives. We 
must quaff the bowl from the crystal foun- 
tain of God if we are to enter into any cer- 
tainty of knowledge or possess understand- 
ing that is coextensive not only with finite 
experience but also with the divine proc- 
esses in the life of the Infinite. 

In the field into which this thought in- 
stantly carries us we discern, not without 
some surprise, that no theory of pure spec- 
ulation will suffice. Apriorism alone is un- 
able to solve the problem of Knowledge. 
No sufficient answer can be discovered that 
is confined within the field of speculative 
reason. There is no high and dry apriori 
road from ontology to cosmology. The 
logical and mathematical principles upon 
which extreme apriorism rests its claims are 
not the last court of appeal. In certain 
cases, as we shall try to show, these prin- 
ciples give way. The explanation of this 
insufficiency of pure reason lies in the fact 
54 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


that the theory of cognition, which is purely 
formal apriori, “fails to admit the affective 
and voluntary aspects of the mind’s life to 
a share in the cognitive attitude toward 
reality.” Hence it does not suffice to give 
us true knowledge of life and reality. 

The first step toward a reconstruction 
of a valid theory of knowledge, therefore, 
will be an act of reconciliation. It must be 
recognized clearly that the old controversy 
between empiricism and apriorism is ended. 
It is outgrown. Bluntschli, in his treatise 
on the State, in considering the antithesis 
between the historical method and an apri- 
ori basis of the idea of right and liberty, 
says, “It is recognized on all sides that the 
experiences and phenomena of history must 
be illumined with the light of ideas, and 
that speculation is childish if it does not 
consider the real conditions of the nation’s 
life.” In the same way the old antithesis 
between empiricism and apriorism is seen 
now to be so far overpassed that the two 
antithetical elements involved are recog- 
nized to be, in reality, not antithetical at 
all. They are the two interweaving com- 
55 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


ponent parts of a larger knowledge. And 
that larger knowledge comprehends and ex- 
plains them both. The underlying ground 
comprehending and yet transcending both 
elements is, as Esdras clearly saw, that 
Spirit who communes with and infills His 
rational creatures. Induction, therefore, 
must confine itself to its own field. Deduc- 
tion must utilize the material of induction 
if actual truth is to be attained. But the 
apriori truths and the truths of experience 
both must be joined together in a higher 
unity of Intelligence. 

This carries us a step further. Now it 
is seen that there can be no such antithesis 
between thought and thing as shall necessi- 
tate dualism. Nor can there be any such 
noumenal fiction as the ungraspable Thing- 
in-itself of Kant. The thing simply is a 
part of that “phenomenal system which for- 
ever proceeds from the immanent energy 
of the One Living Will.” In the presence of 
this One Living Will the finite spirit forever 
finds itself. The mind, therefore, grasps the 
actual thing in thought, while the actual 
thing itself has no meaning outside of 
56 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 

thought. Here the Kantian difficulty solves 
itself rightly and intelligently. Schopen- 
hauer, in his “ World as Will and Idea,” 
presents this conception of knowledge as 
an 4 ‘immediate seizure, as a matter of 
warm feeling and energetic volition, of the 
really existent relations of things and of 
events.” But Schopenhauer is offering a 
truth more pregnant than he himself, per- 
haps, would have allowed. We can have, 
he assures us, experience of an order, of 
thought contents and of relations which 
shall be valid for all. But he can not tell 
us how we reach the common-to-all. We 
reach it, that is all. A Bowne was needed 
to reveal how this wonderful bridge over 
which at last we pass into the clear light is 
“the deep mystery which is involved in the 
community of finite minds; and its solution 
finally must be sought in the realm of the 
infinite.” Thoreau, therefore, is a repre- 
sentative of that kennen of the artist which 
Schopenhauer deems true knowledge, cer- 
tain to bring us to the heart of reality, when 
he says, “I can not tell how, but I see, 
smell, taste, hear, feel that everlasting 
57 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


Something to which we are allied, at once 
our Maker, our abode, our destiny, our 
very selves.” But he is more. For Tho- 
reau has laid hold on the truth of Esdras. 

But we are not done. This explanation 
of the underlying relation of thought and 
thing puts us within the domain of other 
truth still more far-reaching. For suddenly 
we realize that cognition is full of willing 
and feeling. In matters which pure intel- 
lect never reaches, will and feeling are found 
to be fundamentally important. It is one 
of the permanent contributions to human 
thought that have come out of the work of 
Borden P. Bowne that he emphasized with 
contagious conviction this fact that “a large 
part of belief has its origin in life, and a 
large part of belief becomes real only in 
life. The understanding is unable to give 
any substance to many beliefs until they 
are put into practice .” — ( Theory of Thought 
and Knowledge , p. 380.) It would be diffi- 
cult to estimate how largely our belief is 
colored and shaped by our moods and emo- 
tions. 


58 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


“Life, like a dome of many colored glass. 

Stains the white radiance of eternity.” 

Sometimes belief may spring up as the 
resultant of an experience which, though 
transient and mysterious, suffices to shatter 
to the earth every scaffolding of unbelief, 
no matter how carefully or convincingly 
that scaffolding has been erected. Take, 
as an illustration, that word of the bishop 
whom Browning has portrayed as turning 
on his critic and saying: 

“And now what are we ? unbelievers both, 

Calm and complete, deter minately fixed 
To-day, to-morrow, and forever, pray? 

You ’ll guarantee me that? Not so, I think. 

In nowise! All we ’ve gained is, that belief, 

As unbelief before, shakes us by fits, 

Confounds us like its predecessor. Where ’s 
The gain? How can we guard our unbelief. 
Make it bear fruit to us? The problem ’s here. 
Just when we are safest, there ’s a sunset-touch, 
A fancy from a flower-bell, some one’s death, 

A chorus-ending from Euripides, — 

And that ’s enough for fifty hopes and fears 
As old and new at once as nature’s self, 

To rap and knock and enter in our soul, 

Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring, 
Round the ancient idol, on his base again.” 

59 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 

Our action, more perhaps than our 
thinking, shapes our deeper convictions. 
Until his extraordinary victories in Italy, 
Napoleon Bonaparte was Robespierre on 
horseback. But after the Italian triumphs 
the good of France gradually identified it- 
self in the mind of the resistless general, 
and probably sincerely so, with the need of 
a strong dynasty of the house of Bonaparte. 
Most true is that word of Maeterlinck — 
“An act of goodness or justice brings with 
it a kind of inarticulate consciousness that 
often becomes more fruitful than the con- 
sciousness that springs from the very deep- 
est thought.” “Being,” says Professor 
Riehl, “is in no wise a constituent of an 
idea; it is experienced, felt, lived, not 
ideated or thought.” In his “Philosophy of 
Knowledge,” Professor Ladd has devoted a 
luminous chapter to “Knowledge as Feeling 
and Willing.” In that chapter the whole 
matter is discussed at length. It is made 
clear how there can be no cognition without 
the presence of affective and emotional fac- 
tors in the very act of cognition, or without 
the influence of such factors over the nature 
60 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


of the cognitive process itself. In his essay 
on “The Will to Believe,” Professor Janies 
lays emphasis on the compelling power of 
the will to a definite judgment or conclu- 
sion upon the part of the mind. In his 
essay on “Human Immortality,” he returns 
to this thought. He points out how the 
workaday knowledge upon which we all, 
whether consciously or unconsciously, pro- 
ceed is not mere speculative knowledge. 
Then he says, “Most persons imbued with 
what one may call the puritanism of science 
would feel themselves bound to answer this 
question (of disbelief in immortality) with 
a yes. If any medically or psychologically 
bred young scientists feel otherwise, it is 
probably in consequence of that incoherency 
of mind of which the majority of mankind 
happily enjoy the privilege. At one hour 
scientists, at another they are Christians or 
common men, with the will to live hot in 
their breasts; and holding thus the two 
ends of the chain, they are careless of the 
intermediate connection.” 

The decisive factors in the processes of 
the mind thus are seen to be not under- 
61 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


standing, but feeling and willing. And the 
picture which Esdras gives of our entering 
into understanding through a voluntary act 
of surrender to God— through drinking the 
cup which His angel gives us to drink — is 
inerrant. It opens the way for an outcome 
to the whole matter which is practical and 
workable. For, if we look abroad into life 
and into what really is going on in human 
hearts, and then seek to put into definite 
form the secret of knowledge and faith, we 
are brought back to a similar practical con- 
clusion. We discover that, after all, it is 
not through ratiocination, but through the 
will, through the moral sense, and through 
an instinct which, while working irresistibly 
on the intellect, is yet extra-rational, that 
men find certitude of their own spiritual 
life, of immortality, and of God. Not to 
the dreamer, but to the doer, come the true 
interpretations of life. Hegel said that 
“no proof would ever or could ever have 
been offered of God’s existence had our 
knowledge of and belief in such existence 
been obliged to wait for the proof.” This 
same law holds good for all the deeper con- 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


victions of life and consciousness. “When 
instead of theorizing about our faculties, we 
use them, we get on very comfortably. The 
problem which is insoluble in theory solves 
itself in practice. . . . The professional 
skeptic finds his occupation going if not gone; 
for his objections have commonly been of 
the abstract, academic type, and these are 
now seen in their perennial barrenness and 
fatuity.” — ( B . P. Bowne, The Christian Rev- 
elation , pp. 69-71.) 

This practical attitude of a working 
faith, therefore, is the view of life that alone 
is worth while, for it alone leaves room for 
those deeper channels of human existence 
in which the soul finds room and scope — 
love, loyalty, choice. With such a practical 
attitude of the heart, the moral ends of life 
are not defeated but subserved. If once we 
can get a firm hold on such a practical at- 
titude of trust in Him whose will we strive 
to do, the tangled skein of life and history 
begins to ravel. Tolstoi, after years of 
despair, declared that in this practical at- 
titude of a working, trusting dependence 
upon an Intelligent Will mightier than him- 
63 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


self did he alone find peace . — {My Confes- 
sions.) Benjamin Kidd said that working 
faith was the only solution of the social 
problem . — ( Social Evolution , p. 116.) Schlei- 
ermacher held that the only right basis of 
any intelligent theology must be this same 
practical attitude of a working faith. “This 
have I grasped/’ he says, “and forsake it 
never. And so, smiling do I behold the 
light fade from the eyes, and mark the 
white hair among the blond locks. Nothing 
that may happen can disturb my heart; 
fresh remains the pulse of the inner life, 
even until death.” — ( Monologen .) If we 
seek to pierce beyond the veil, it still is 
only thus, resting secure upon a practical, 
working faith, that we can catch 

“Authentic tidings of invisible things, 

Of ebb and flow and ever-during Power, 

And central peace subsisting at the heart 
Of endless agitation.” 

But this working faith in the Life of the 
Spirit which holds in its bosom the universe 
will enable us to fulfill our own highest des- 
tiny. For, having surrendered our wills to 
64 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


the World of the Spirit, we become identi- 
fied with the purposes of that World. We 
lay hold, as it were, on another world to set 
over against the world of sense. We pass 
through that spiritual experience which 
Goethe strives to portray in the last stage 
of his Faust story — 

“Those who have not understood 
‘ Die and rise to-morrow ! ’ 

They are but as passing shades 
In this world of sorrow.” 

Having died to our own selves and risen to 
be partakers in the Life of the Spirit, we 
find our wills strangely stayed and strength- 
ened. We recognize that in some mysterious 
way the World of the Spirit has taken hold 
on us, that it crowds itself into us, that it 
creates in us a new center of spiritual life 
and power. Thus the real greatness of any 
individual life will be found to be in just 
the exact measure of the surrender of that 
life to the Life of the Spirit. Here is found 
the true superman — he who can be content 
with humble powers and obscure place be- 
cause he is in perpetual remembrance that 
5 65 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


he is linked with the Love that moves the 
sun and the other stars. What though evil 
circumstance and discouraging environment 
are his. Wliat though the world marshals 
its forces against him. Though every alien 
interest and tyrant hour may condemn him 
— what matters it all? He has entered into 
the divine sweep and purpose. He shall 
rise to supreme accomplishment, to dazzling 
destiny. His heart has uttered understand- 
ing. He is at one with God. 


66 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE VIRTUE OF MAGNIFICENCE. 

One of the old Norse Sagas tells of a visit 
of Thor to the far northern mist folk or 
land of the giants. There the mist folk 
challenge the powers of the famous hero 
god. Among other tests, he is bidden to 
drain a drinking-horn of mead which is 
handed him. Of notable potatory ability, 
the wielder of the hammer, who is to be 
granted three draughts at the horn, makes 
a first and a second effort, with no result 
whatever. For the last draught, the hero 
summons all his abysmal resources. So 
bravely does he drink that this, he thinks, 
surely must end it. To his amazement, 
however, Thor finds that the level of the 
brimming beverage hardly has been stirred. 
But when the spell of enchantment is lifted, 
then it is seen that one end of the horn is 
connected with the ocean. He, therefore, 
67 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


who would drain that flagon first must 
empty the shoreless, cloud-shadowed sea. 

To drink from a cup which holds the 
infinite is an ambitious endeavor. But it 
marks the great heart to attempt it. And 
it is contact with the Infinite alone that 
lifts and suffuses the individual life with 
largeness and diviner meaning, or, indeed, 
gives it entrance to attempt immortal tasks. 
This is one of the central thoughts in the 
Divine Comedy of Dante. For, in begin- 
ning his Paradiso, the poet gives warning 
that to celestial things only they may follow 
him who have fed upon the pane degli 
angeli, bread of the angels. And the ascent 
into Paradise is marked, not by any sense 
of upward motion, but by the increasing 
brightness in the face of Beatrice, whose 
soul is suffused with heaven. The words of 
the Italian singer might serve as the coun- 
tersign for all future pioneers of the Spirit — 

“The sea I sail has never yet been passed: 

Ye who have the neck uplifted to the Bread 
of Angels 

May launch (upon the deep, salt sea) 

Your vessel, keeping still my wake before you.” 

68 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


No one, perhaps, would charge “the 
mad philosopher” Nietzsche with over- 
emphasizing the advantages of communion 
with the celestial or the spiritual. Yet, 
through the mind and heart of this seerlike 
genius crept, in a weird, concatenated way, 
a sense of this need of the Infinite in our 
own individual human affairs if those affairs 
are to have, at the last, any justifiable 
claims to real greatness or immortality. 
“It seems,” he says, “that in order to in- 
scribe themselves upon the heart of hu- 
manity with everlasting claims, all great 
things have first to wander about the earth 
as enormous and awe-inspiring caricatures.” 
— ( Beyond Good and Evil.) The fatal flaw 
in the thought of Nietzsche, however, con- 
cerning that realm that lies beyond our or- 
dinary, commonplace individual lives is that 
it is stripped of moral significance, it is 
“beyond good and evil.” 

The only defensible explanation of our 
relation with the Infinite is found in Chris- 
tian philosophy. There it is found that 
one of the first results of the acceptance of 
the Christian theory of life is that there 
69 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


springs out of the Christian life experience 
a peculiar and distinctive virtue. For lack 
of a better name or definition, we might 
say that this virtue coalesces with that 
which the poet of the “ Faery Queen” calls 
the supreme, culminating virtue — the virtue 
of magnificence. 

The reason we say that the distinctive 
mark of a true Christian believer will be 
that he possesses this virtue of magnificence 
is that such virtue is the logical outcome of 
his faith. For Christianity is an apocalypse 
— a light for the unveiling of the nations. 
The great fact in the life of a herald of such 
faith, therefore, must be his vision. He 
must be a prophet of that religion which by 
its very nature is universal. Whatever else 
he may have is secondary. First and fore- 
most, he must have the virtue of mag- 
nificence. 

Magnificence is a world-word in the 
scope of its vision, ministry and power. In 
his vision, therefore, the herald of this 
world-gospel will see large. Seeing the end 
from the beginning, noting the sublime 
where others see the commonplace, he will 
70 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 

apprehend the magnificence of life as prom- 
ised by the Kingdom of God in this world. 
Whatever there is of attainment or achieve- 
ment he will regard as only the glory of the 
imperfect in an imperfect world. There is 
much of truth in the contention of Dean 
Inge, that the Church is making a mistake 
in seeking to adapt herself to all the needs 
of this present age, or in trying to solve all 
the problems of the age. The supreme call- 
ing of the Church is to keep alive in the 
hearts of men the sense of the eternal. 
What this generation needs is not something 
new in religion, but a new enthusiasm for 
the old faith; not a new creed, but a new 
heart; not a new destructive modernism, but 
a new constructive puritanism; not a sophis- 
tical dividing of truth, but a right vision of 
the Lord of Truth; not a more pretentious 
brotherhood, but a humbler walk with God ; 
not an artificial communism, but an unselfish 
Godlikeness. Unless these blind gropings 
and frenzied combinations of the toilers are 
centered and controlled by a new sight of 
the Savior, they will pull down the pillars 
of society and government. 

71 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 

To induce secularized, money-mad men 
in the street to accept this ideal, the herald 
of the gospel must be a cosmic man, pan- 
oplied imperially. No mere vocational book 
training will suffice. It will not be enough 
to have “a soul replete with good litera- 
ture,” or for the fisher of men to “bait his 
hook with his heart.” He may have “ intel- 
lectual sincerity, serenity of mind, and lofti- 
ness of purpose.” He may “see straight 
and think clearly.” He may be “endued 
with a sense of proportion and have a 
luminous philosophy of life.” His breadth 
may be accompanied by depth and passion. 
His mind may be educated to think habit- 
ually by “the system of co-ordination and 
unity,” the system by which the Almighty 
thinks the universe into being and opera- 
tion. Yet, beyond all this, he who would 
put body into the virtue of magnificence 
must have the royal bounty. He must see 
large. He must hear “the hum of mighty 
workings.” He must have fed upon Bread 
of the angels. The sweetness and simplicity 
of the great vision must have given him 
celestial leaven and the wooing note. The 
72 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


vision of humanity bought back from fail- 
ure, regaining its lost radiance, caught up 
to glory through the Son of Man, Incarna- 
tion of Deity, must have enchanted his 
soul, so that mystic, unseen, immortal 
forces shall have made him a seer of the 
Spirit, a poet of the cross, a troubadour of 
God. 

This will be the normal process, if, like 
Esdras, the herald of the gospel has put 
his lips to the Cup of Eire. For, in his in- 
nermost consciousness, the God-speaker will 
have become irradiated with his vision. 
Understanding that the universe itself is 
God-filled, he will realize that nature her- 
self is a sacrament, and behind birds, flow- 
ers, and clouds he will discern the spiritual 
shining. The child of the Spirit recognizes 
humanism, secularism, and materialism to 
be pagan drifts back to the old swine- 
husks. Over against the time-tendency 
gleams like a rainbow around the throne, 
the eternal ideal. 

Such son of the gospel will not be found 
wanting in the captaincy of practical af- 
fairs. He will “commandeer” law and gov- 
73 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


ernment in the fight on greed, corruption, 
crime, and war. He will think and plan in 
terms of continents and worlds. With 
every comrade of the cross he will strike 
hands for a holy catholic army, whose sol- 
diers shall be all the saints. With apostolic 
zeal and authority he will marshal a real 
and stable brotherhood of labor. He will 
make the family the home of sanctity, so- 
ciety without a saloon sober and industri- 
ous, the Church an ark of safety, civiliza- 
tion Christian. 

But, beyond all this, there will be for 
him a transfiguration illumination, a celes- 
tial stimulation that can come only through 
identity with the Christ, the Dynamic of 
Light and Life. This will pour into heart, 
however dull and cold, a fiery quickening 
and splendor. It will make the laborer one 
with the Master in a quenchless passion for 
souls. It will suffuse vision with eternal 
consequences for righteousness. It will fuse 
learning into a heavenly enchantment. It 
will lift the herald of the world-faith into 
that higher reach of the Spirit where as a 
companion of the Eternal, a “ Knight of the 
74 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


Holy Ghost ” (to borrow the phrase of the 
poet Heine), a prophet for this modern 
world, he can ride forth bearing a love- 
power that shall rob the world’s heart of 
every incantation against the Kingdom, 
every divination against Jesus. Like the 
mystics whose work was followed by the 
Reformation, this partaker in the work of 
the Spirit, in a peculiar sense of perfect 
union with the Lord of Life, will put his 
hands between the King’s hands. With 
Him he will drink the Cup of Fire, the 
Chalice of the Spirit of Life. Then, indeed, 
will the feet of the messenger be beautiful 
upon the mountains, beautiful with the 
quick coming of that day when the Lord 
shall see of the travail of His soul, and 
shall be satisfied. Humanity shall be lifted 
to the starry paths of the King. 

This was the secret of the early Meth- 
odists. In the Life of the Spirit they saw 
large. They indeed had drunk of the Chal- 
ice of the Spirit of Life and had entered into 
“The large desire of a King.” Their faith 
ran out to conquer shoreless, cloud-shad- 
owed seas. Their Virtue of Magnificence 
75 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


knew not at all the impossible. It was be- 
cause of this that, as one of their historians 
has said, they were pioneers of the Spirit 
“whom no labors tired, no scenes disgusted, 
no dangers alarmed, in the discharge of 
their duty. To gain recruits for their 
Master’s service, they sedulously sought out 
the loneliest and most distant neighbor- 
hoods. There, in unfinished and scarcely 
habitable cabins, they could be heard 
preaching to six and eight individuals with 
the same zeal and unction as marked their 
discourses in great populous cities. Drift- 
ing down solitary rivers, traversing wilder- 
nesses by the dim blaze of the backwoods- 
man’s fire, piercing malarial swamps and 
savannahs, bivouacking amid snow and ice 
and Indians, they led the western pilgrimage 
of God-sent humanity.” Yes, they saw 
large. Whatever captious critics might al- 
lege against those idealists, none ever denied 
them that virtue by which they were “high 
and lifted up.” Their poet has put their 
experience into ecstatic lyric — 


76 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


“ I rode on the sky, 

Fully justified I, 

Nor envied Elijah his seat; 

My soul mounted higher 
In a chariot of fire, 

And the moon, it was under my feet.” 

Thus accoutered, the prophet of the 
magnificence of life takes up a world-task, 
holding out a new program for Christianity. 
He gauges aright science, dogma, and crit- 
icism. Truth never violates herself. No 
discovery, no new theory can supplant the 
cross. In its higher essence, “ religion never 
can suffer from any new philosophy.” The 
loftiest dream of humanity never has been 
a dream of knowledge, but always of man- 
hood and womanhood. The lordliest hun- 
ger of the human heart never has been a 
love of pleasure or a lust of money and of 
power, but always a yearning for compas- 
sion. Anchored to this bed-rock of soul- 
yearning, the partaker in the work of the 
Spirit will not heed the din which is drown- 
ing voices that preach old beliefs. He will 
give to a heartbroken, dying world the cup 
of consolation. His heart will widen to his 
77 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


vision. Choosing life for his portion, he 
will make people his passion. He will shore 
back the contracting walls of society. He 
will play the man to win a world-empire for 
the King. 

An evangelist, he will put back the halo 
on sin-sick souls. A shepherd of tender 
youth, he will show for what cause that 
great Shepherd of the sheep chose unsoiled 
childhood for His peculiar fold. Has the 
priest for centuries made the fine arts an 
ecclesiastical demesne? Then this herald 
of divineness in common things shall claim 
for the Carpenter the industries, the me- 
chanical arts, and the abysmal toil of the 
great underworld. Business and the home 
are high callings of God. Captains of in- 
dustry shall be mighty men for the Son of 
David. Have music and the literary graces 
been orthodox angels of worship? Then 
this prophet of the magnificence of life shall 
catch and set to harmony “the tune that 
is haunting millions of human ears and 
hearts.” The Shepherd’s song most sweetly 
echoes in new philanthropies and in efforts 
to improve the material condition of the 
78 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


people. A better social order will open un- 
ending avenues of promise to “the tired, 
the throttled, the dwarfed, the enchained.” 
With such melody, not with horses and 
chariots, the Prince is marching to the con- 
quest of the world. 

Harnack says that not only was the 
Church in its organization rooted in the 
proclamation of the Word of God as a 
gospel, but that at a very early period this 
proclamation took on the Trinitarian Con- 
fession, and from it received its distinctive 
stamp . — ( Constitution and Law of the Church 
in the First Two Centuries , p. X.) The 
prophet of the magnificence of life, there- 
fore, will find the culminating glory of his 
vision in man himself. For, if he is true to 
the proclamation as it first was made, this 
prophet will find that, through the Christ, 
man is in God, and, again through the 
Christ, there will be a Divine significance 
touching with its sacred flame and glorify- 
ing every child of the human race. Then 
life never can lose its halo. But as Jowett, 
in one of the most luminous of his utter- 
ances, says, there will be always a mystical 
79 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


light on life, a mysterious significance touch- 
ing everything; everything will be the be- 
ginning of a lane that leads into infinitude; 
nothing will be commonplace ; all through the 
day there will be an eternal gleam on every- 
thing; and everything will suggest the 
dwelling-place of God. 

One of the present-day leaders in aggres- 
sive social Christianity charges the Church 
with an eclipse of faith, “ occasioned so 
largely by an age of wealth and luxury, and 
of intellectual pedantry and pride.” In 
illustrating his thought, this leader goes on 
to say that “ nothing from without, no at- 
tack, has ever hurt Christianity. When 
wounded, when the eclipse of faith has 
come, and the Church has become power- 
less and ineffective, it always has come 
from within .” — {Sylvester Horne , Sermons in 
America.) This charge of an eclipse of 
faith is unfounded, we believe. But had 
the word “ faith” been changed to “fire,” 
the charge would have been true. An 
eclipse of fire, of spiritual enthusiasm, is, 
indeed, a mark of the Christian Church to- 
day. The “old Aldersgate fire” no longer 
80 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 

flames as once it did. One of the secular 
journals in a notable article on “The Van- 
ished ‘Amen Corner,’ ” (quoted in the Bos- 
ton Transcript ), calls attention to this de- 
cadence in holy fervency. And, pointing 
to the fact that the Amen Corner has been 
silenced, the writer asks the question, “Has 
the Church advanced since this gauge of 
the spirituality of worship was supplanted 
by cold intellectualism, or has religion been 
retarded?” The questioner confessedly is 
speaking for those who “bear in tender re- 
membrance the days when the fire burned 
in the hearts of the hearers of sermons on 
Sunday, and when the preacher was in- 
spired by the hearty attestations to the 
truth of his utterances by loud amens that 
came from the Amen Corner.” But it is 
no superficial question that he is asking, for 
this lover of the old days immediately but- 
tresses his position by an appeal to the fact 
that the custom of crying out Amen in the 
midst of the congregation comes down from 
the time of the return of the Israelites from 
captivity. And then he adds, “Enthusiasm 
is the breath of God, and the old Amen 
e 81 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


Corner was the place for enthusiasm.” But 
the point to him is one of spiritual philos- 
ophy. For he goes on to cite the present 
tendency toward a pride in intellectual ap- 
prehension, rather than in a spiritual ab- 
sorption of the truth of the Divine Word. 
And he concludes, 4 ‘Once there was deep 
earnestness and a sense of the presence of 
God in literal power. . . . To-day the 
need for more fervor and personal partici- 
pation in the spirit of worship is the greatest 
need of the Church.” 


82 


CHAPTER V. 


THE GLOW FROM THE GRAIL. 

The Cup of God, as described in the Parsi- 
fal story, was marked by a divine, mystical 
glow, which, from the Chalice as a heaven- 
shining center, streamed out upon all 
around. The human interest attaching to 
the ideal figure of Parsifal consists in the 
fact that to him it was due that the Chalice, 
with its life-giving glow, was retained to 
erring humanity. But this idea that through 
contact with God there is strength, healing, 
and life, is older and more far-reaching in its 
sweep than any legendary fancy or tradi- 
tion. An old Dutch painter has a picture 
showing the first Christmas. It is night. 
The humble shelter of Bethlehem is wrapped 
in gloom. The only illumination of the 
scene, and that with invisible rays, is a 
mystic light softly shining from the new- 
born Child. Here and there the dark is 
penetrated by the glory from the Christ. 

83 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


Whithersoever the glory falls, the night 
shineth as the day. Whatsoever the glory 
touches leaps out of darkness into radiance. 

This picture by the Dutch artist appears 
understandable enough. “Light has come 
into the world!” sang the monks at the cor- 
onation of the great Leo. This canvas, we 
say, is a vivid portrayal of the true Light 
of the World — 

“ Hail, holy cave, though dark thou be, 

The world is lighted up by thee.” 

The truth is, however, that the Holland 
painter is a mystic. Like Hokusai, the Jap- 
anese color-print maker, who called him- 
self “an old man mad with color,” this por- 
trayer of the Bethlehem scene was blinded 
with excess of light. His brush spilled over 
a little of what was in his soul. In spirit, 
the artist is one with those children of the 
East who apprehend that which they call 
“The Gospel of Light.” They love such 
phrases as “The Splendor of God,” “The 
Glory of the Glory of God.” The Shintoist 
song has a favorite refrain — “Thy way, O 
God, is a path of Light!” Most of us know 
84 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


little about the Bab or the Bahai religion, 
except such scraps of information as we can 
gleam with no small difficulty. But notably, 
perhaps, in that faith, mixed up a little with 
polygamy, there seems to be this craving 
for “Light,” springing doubtless out of the 
spiritual inheritance of millenniums. Mark- 
ing these Eastern faiths ever recur such 
conceptions as these — 

“The True One hath become manifest 
Like unto the Shining Sun. 

Pity that He hath come in the City of the Blind.” 

“ Everything is mortal save the face of God. 

To His beauty there are no veils but LIGHT.” 

“ A dream of a shadow is man. But whenso honor 
Cometh given of Zeus, 

There dwelleth on men a bright light 
And pleasant life.” 

Are all such pagan fore-shinings broken 
lights of the Crystal Christ? 

“ Thou art, O Lord, the light and life 
Of all this wondrous world we see. 

Its glow by day, its sheen by night 
Are but reflections caught from Thee. 

In all Thy works Thy glories shine, 

And all things bright and fair are Thine.” 

85 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


The art of the Hollander, therefore, may 
serve to us as a suggestion. It speaks of an 
all-involving reign of the Spirit which gives 
the birth at Bethlehem celestial meaning. 
It is the apprehending of a living Personal 
Reality at the bosom of that eternity to 
whose mysteries we haste. The good old 
Netherlander long since was called to the 
nearer light. But the idealism of his art 
remains to haunt the beholder with a sense 
of the nearness of the Divine. It lifts the 
curtain behind which throb Divine proc- 
esses. 

The thought may emerge a little more 
clearly, perhaps, if we turn to a singular 
antithesis. The poetry of Arabia sprang 
from the songs of her camel drivers. The 
Arabian poets from early days have been 
called “The Singing Caravan.” Poetry of 
such origin not unexpectedly would deal 
largely with terrestrial and sensuous things. 
Until the time of Job, nature and the world 
were disjuncted from God; they were the 
shadow of God. But the neighbors of the 
Arabs, the Hebrews, understood nature. In 
singing of nature, all their songs were of 
86 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


God. They discerned clearly that nature 
is the garment of Jehovah. And so when 
they sang of nature the clouds of glory did 
not disappear. David, when picturing the 
coming of Messias into the sphere of earthly 
things and striving to describe those who 
were to mark His coming, exclaims, “They 
looked unto Him and were radiant.” 

In Benares, one day, we looked through 
the peephole in the wall by which unbe- 
lievers may behold the Shiva god of the 
Golden Temple in that sacred city of the 
Hindus. There we witnessed what might 
be termed a real instance of soul-telesthesia, 
the spiritual mystery of soul-transference 
and influence. Around the gleaming image 
of Shiva flickered lighted candles. Within 
the circle of light the visage of each pilgrim, 
as, for a moment, he bowed before his god, 
was lighted up by a weird reflection from 
the shining god — a reflection of lust, ha- 
tred, destructiveness, diabolism, or despair. 
Just for a fleeting instant was seen the mir- 
acle, then the face vanished again into the 
dark. 

That Benares episode pictures the reflex 
87 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


side of this same law of the all-pervading 
Spirit. The influence from the evil god, 
denial of the true Light, falls upon human 
hearts and lives with baleful reflections. 
And the soul carries this influence out, per- 
haps, to add new fierceness to Assam head- 
hunting, to gild Ceylon sin experiences, or 
to bring tragedy to birth beside some im- 
mense Himalayan gulf in which the eagles 
swim. But none the less the divine truth 
remains. And through all it streams up, 
at the last, to conquer. 

In his Psalms, the Hebrew singer de- 
scribes this final victory of the Divine Light. 
Being a mountain man, the shepherd poet 
uses the mountains as a setting for his de- 
scription. He selects as a natural phenom- 
enon for illustration the coming of the 
dawn over the mountain peaks. This the 
Hebrews called Aijeleth Shahar, Hind of 
the Morning, because, as you gaze, the 
light rays take on the appearance of the 
antlers of a shining, heavenly deer coming 
up over the mountains. 

Through the shadows of the world looks 
the Savior, Divine Hind of the Morning. 

88 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


Even as He looks, lo, across the dark shoot 
rays of glory, and the night, with its heav- 
ing, rolling, despairing heart of chaos, is 
kissed into a dazzling chariot of the King. 

In the Twenty-second Psalm, David is 
sitting in the shadow of the dark, giving 
voice to his despair. Suddenly his heart 
leaps. He sees the Lord. The Psalm hardly 
ends. It swells over into another Psalm, 
the immortal Twenty- third Psalm, where 
faith is lost in sight and love breaks into 
glory. This is why the Book says that the 
Twenty-second Psalm is sung upon Aijeleth 
Shahar. This also is why untold souls have 
been comforted and have entered into vis- 
ions of which it were not lawful to speak, 
as for them out of the dark has come that 
heavenly sunburst, “The Lord is my Shep- 
herd, I shall not want.” 

To one thus enlightened the Incarnation 
is the natural unveiling of the Splendor of 
God. From that Splendor the things which 
for the moment abide, catch their light and 
shining. They look unto Him and are ra- 
diant. Moses, on Sinai, with face shining 
from the presence of the Almighty, and 
89 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


again Moses on the Mount, transfigured in 
the presence of the Son of God, marks the 
historic sweep of that Divine progress which 
logically, if apocalyptically, can end only in 
a celestial city which shall have no need of 
the sun, neither of the moon to shine upon 
it, for the glory of God shall lighten it and 
the lamp thereof shall be the Lamb. 

The picture on the canvas of the old 
artist is, of course, only symbolic of this 
sweep of the Divine progress. It registers, 
as it were, in human terms the earthly 
movement of the life of the Spirit. If we 
trace out the conception of the painter, in 
its suggested touches here and there, we 
simply find ourselves carried out into vari- 
ous channels of life and experience where 
the larger promise still is all before us. In 
its widest reach, for example, the glory 
from the Christ Child falls on a star. This 
star-messenger is imagined as remaining 
after the departure of the angel escort de- 
scribed in the story. It is as if to make sure 
how earth will receive her King. For the 
universe belongs to this new-come Mon- 
arch. The artist fancy is not without its 
90 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


logical connection. The mingled brightness 
of manger and star, what is it if it is not a 
twofold prophecy that the planet which 
has cradled God shall be made rich by His 
royal bounty? And is not this coming to 
pass? Is not this gray old world breaking 
into sweetness and flower? Only yesterday, 
as earth reckons time, the American conti- 
nent was “red in tooth and claw with 
ravin of savage beasts and men.” To-day 
lush gardens laugh with happy homes. 
Villages cluster where the wild hog rooted 
and the red deer made her home. Where 
once we walked, now wings waft us. Light- 
nings are our thought-flashes. The chi- 
meras of the ancients are our burden-bear- 
ers, whose four-footed tramplings make glad 
the world. For the hydra which once blew 
on the face of the waters to-day is the steam- 
ship. The dragon which vomited flame is 
the locomotive. The griffin, which with 
the wings of an eagle and the claws of a 
tiger flew, the monster of the air, now is 
the air-ship. So, at least, interprets Victor 
Hugo our mechanical conquest over sea, 
earth, and air. But this is only the begin- 
91 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


ning. A thousand years hence what world- 
riddles will have been solved. Was Faust 
dreaming true? Are the very earth-spirits 
themselves to be subject to us? The mind 
refuses to grasp the prospect. Poetic faith 
alone can forecast what shall be. Through 
Paradise Regained shall flow the crystal 
river. Through unfading landscapes of the 
larger husbandry shall run happy pathways 
of a new earth. 

Shining past the star into lower domains 
of darkness, the mystic light falls upon a 
human face. It is a repulsive face. With 
jealous hate, the countenance marks the 
scene from the background. Herod, it is — 
he who sought to slay the young Child. 
The light for a second touches the face as 
if in pity. Then the visage vanishes. That 
face of Herod is the symbol of sin — sin 
whose dark throne was conquered when in 
the little town of Bethlehem shone the ever- 
lasting Light. There are they who say that 
the world is growing worse; that it is morally 
and spiritually decadent; that crime, misery, 
wretchedness wax; that our modern cities 
are lazar houses; that cynical materialism, 
92 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


born of accumulated wealth, has become a 
leprosy on house and garment. But such 
malarial cries are stilled by the voice of the 
angel, whose message is good tidings of 
great joy, news of “the entrance into hu- 
man life of the eternal Son of God for our 
salvation; tidings of an infinite love that 
gives its hands to the nails that it may 
save the men that are driving the nails; 
tidings of a forgiveness that cancels sin’s 
penalties; of a grace that breaks sin’s power, 
and of eternal life in a realm where sin can 
not come.” A world that forever is better, 
happier, more radiant, echoes the voice of 
the angel. Heavenly influences have be- 
come a celestial magnet. That magnet is 
drawing the universe upward toward the 
divine purity, sweetness, and love. 

Within the stable of Bethlehem, as the 
artist represents the incident, the light 
shines more effulgent. Something of the 
pathos of the hour and place now is re- 
vealed. Against the further gloom are out- 
lined cattle, weariedly resting. 

Redemption, as there pictured, compre- 
hends even the beasts of the field. Their 
93 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


burdens and sorrows also are not forgotten 
in the wondrous story. 

But the scene grows more intimate. 
The supernal glory lights up a group of 
three men — three “wise men,” says the rec- 
ord; “three kings out of the morning land,” 
says tradition. But behind these barbaric 
forms a vast and radiant company of beings 
looks and crowds inward. From the limits 
of the world they are coming. Out of their 
night they are struggling, holding up to the 
Divine Light their treasures of wisdom, 
government, and power. What art paints 
ideal, life finds real. Against the benighted 
impulses of nations relying on brute force, 
the sweet influences of Pleiades, the celes- 
tial upward gravitation from the Star King, 
ofttimes may seem to avail but little. None 
the less, whether or no Faust saw behind 
the veil, certainly John Milton pierced the 
infinite. And never was his lyre tuned to 
higher or truer strain than when the poet 
sang of the peace which the divine nativity 
presaged — 


94 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


“The hooked chariot stood, 

Unstained with hostile blood; 

The trumpet spake not to the armed throng.” 

One claiming to have been an eye-wit- 
ness of the happening is responsible for a 
remarkable story of the Siege of Paris. As 
midnight ushered in the Christmas Day of 
that dreadful winter, runs the story, out 
on the lines of the two hostile armies a 
French private soldier, a well-known singer, 
leaped into plain sight of the enemy and 
began to sing a carol of the Christ Child, 
set to contagious melody. Hardly had the 
echoes of the song died away over the snow 
when a burly German artilleryman strode 
out from the investing trenches and began 
to sing a tender German folk song of Christ- 
mas. This time the close of the carol was 
acclaimed by joyful shouts from both ar- 
mies — “Noel, Noel, Weihnachtzeit, Weih- 
nachtzeit!” 

Yes, the lighted faces of those barbaric 
kings mean a triumphant Prince of Peace. 
For the light that streamed through the 
manger of Bethlehem into the hearts of 
men, slowly but with ever-increasing radi- 
95 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


ance, is suffusing and interpenetrating all 
human thinking and doing. “Christendom 
writes the poems, writes the orations, writes 
the philosophies, makes all the original dis- 
coveries of science, writes the history of 
mankind.” To borrow a figure, the Chris- 
tian Church, the one eternal conqueror 
whose banner mounts to every citadel, 
sweeping forward forever at the heart of a 
mystery of encasing Deity, “views all 
worlds of science and art and philosophy 
and government, all the shining moods of 
human culture and all the blasted survivals 
of departed glory through the infinite trans- 
parency and peace of the Eternal Spirit.” 
Yet to the watcher this divine progress 
seems slow. At times, as one fingers the 
beads of a rosary, it helps the heart to name 
the names of some of the torchbearers who 
have been carrying forward the sacred flame. 

There was a pioneer of the spirit, a 
captain of the soul who brought new dig- 
nity and radiance to all human thinking. 
Some who were his pupils wot not the won- 
der that they saw. The debt which they 
owe to him can not be paid. But did not 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


their hearts burn within them as, under 
the spell of his spirit calling to their spirits 
as the angel called to Esdras under the oak 
tree, “the sense of the eternal received fresh 
stimulus from the immeasurable prospect 
of an infinite and living universe, while ra- 
diant truths did swim before them in a 
rapturous vision? 55 To him the dream was 
so golden, so divine, that at the last he felt 
it worth the pangs of the crossing to read 
the open secret. Borden Parker Bowne — 
unto the Lord of Light he looked and was 
radiant. Yes, name his name, shining torch- 
bearer who, in his turn, was summoned to 
the nearer Light. But even in the unveiled 
Splendor of the Sun of Truth this soul 
must be 

“ Still climbing after knowledge infinite 

And ever moving as the restless spheres.’ * 

Under the artist brush, a nearer group 
stands revealed in the Bethlehem khan. 
These kneel adoring. Rough, hairy men 
are they, clad in skins and bearing crooks 
and staves. The shaggy outlines mark the 
shepherd. These shepherds are humanity 
7 97 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


— wandering, burden-bearing, sorrow-sore 
humanity. And against the Palestinian 
night, upon these kneeling shepherds the 
brightness from the Holy Child with height- 
ened luster lingers tenderly. Wherever men 
meet the Son of God face to face, there 
they experience help and healing. They 
learn the brotherhood of love. Because 
they, through Him, are “the children of 
God called to the liberty of love,” their 
lives, however broken or despoiled, have 
right of way. 

But there is a new and vital revelation 
to the human spirit made clear through 
these Shepherd toilers. These watchers of 
the field kneeling in the light no sooner 
had heard the angel message than they 
leaped from their wretched night as those 
that dream. “Let us now go,” they said, 
“and see this thing which is come to pass.” 
Pathologists of crime come, sometimes, 
from certain abysmal corners of the under- 
world, bringing what they are certain is a 
new secret for the rescue of lost souls. 
But there is none save the old secret — that 
98 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


of the shepherds. A life that is lost in the 
night must rejoice at the voice of the 
angels. It must turn instantly and gladly 
toward the Light, saying, “Let me now go 
and see!” Then, answering as immediately, 
in whatever humblest place, comes the 
miracle. The life, flooded with celestial 
morning, finds “a new efficiency through a 
deeper insight into the purpose of Jesus 
Christ.” They who have not beheld the 
miracle shall find no comfort by setting 
their mouths against the heavens. Within 
themselves must they search to find the 
reason — 

“The angels keep their ancient places; — 

Turn but a stone, and start a wing, 

*T is ye, ’t is your estranged faces, 

That miss the many-splendored thing.” 

Upon one last group does the streaming 
glory fall. The group is of two — the earthly 
father and mother of the Child. The heart 
of the Middle Ages was broken by a song. 
This song was a hymn which a Franciscan 
monk, in his cell remembering his old de- 
99 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


serted mother, wrote out of heartaches and 
tear- wet memories — Stabat Mater Dolorosa: 

“At the Cross her station keeping, 

Stood the mournful Mother weeping, 

Close to Jesus to the last: 

Through her heart His sorrow sharing. 

All His bitter anguish bearing, 

Now at length the sword had passed.’ * 

Throughout Christendom few ideas sway so 
many hearts as does this subtle appeal of 
the Virgin Mary. Through all her tumultu- 
ous, amazing career, the Roman Church 
has held up this conception of the Mother- 
hood of God as an unchanging assurance of 
Divine consolation. While this primitive 
appeal knocks at the heart the celestial 
universe is not dumb, as Carlyle claimed to 
find it. No. This figure of the mother of 
the Lord, mystically lighted up by the glory 
of her sacrificial relation to her Babe, shows 
us the eternal reason come to utterance in 
human life. But it reveals much more. 
It shows that light is not our only need in 
this world. “The central fact of the uni- 
verse is the cross, with its revelation of the 
100 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


law of moral love.” Daily existence simply 
will mock us unless its catastrophes glow 
with spirit-filled purpose. The way out to 
conquest is to understand that through 
catastrophe we may share in the Divine 
sacrificial love. “If only we had the right 
sort of eyes, God-given eyes, grace-washed 
eyes,” then we would see that the very 
happenings, which erstwhile have caused 
us to lament, now bid us to sing. For at 
their heart they are “strange bright birds, 
on their starry wings bearing the rich hues 
of all glorious things.” By our side is God 
Himself to aid and to comfort. Like Mary, 
at the foot of the cross, weeping yet com- 
forted, like Cyrano de Bergerac, out of the 
cataclysm that crashes upon us to clutch 
our souls, we can say, 

“ So when I left the flames in which I swam, 

Mine eyes saw blots of Gold on everything.” 

The supreme, compelling fact, therefore, 
is that through the Christ alone can we 
understand the Divine; only through a 
personal identity with the Son of God can 
we find God fully; only through sharing in 
101 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


the purposes of the Christ can we find celes- 
tial stimulation for life. This radiant fact 
is, to borrow the phrase of the mystics, 
“the embalmer of the world. The silent 
song of the stars is it.” 


102 


CHAPTER VI. 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET 
FOR TO-DAY. 

This is an age of transition. Everywhere 
are signs of change in the attitude of the 
human spirit. In all fields of human in- 
terest 

“A voice that never stills 
Sings and sings a soul into things 
And builds the world anew.” 


The search, to-day, always is for the new 
thing. It is the New Civilization, the New 
Education, the New Psychology, the New 
Chemistry, the New Woman, the New 
Bible. The old religion appears in a New 
Theology, the old patriotism in a New 
Politics. The old philanthropy awakes in 
New Institutions, the old brotherhood in a 
New Social Order. A resistless leaven is 
leavening. Old forms are outworn. Old 
traditions are outgrown. New wine is 
103 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


bursting the bottles of the grandfathers. 
Could our ancestors of two or three gener- 
ations ago awake to find themselves in the 
present atmosphere of life, they hardly 
would credit their senses. Within fifty 
years there have been established theories, 
doctrines, truths that are changing the 
character and aim of the race. 

Of all these changes, however, the most 
notable is a religious and spiritual transfor- 
mation. We have seen how the only ra- 
tional explanation of the universe is through 
God, and how the only understanding of 
God and the supreme approach to Him is 
through the Christ. So, now this spiritual 
transformation is understood best from the 
fact that it arises largely out of an altered 
attitude toward Jesus. Because of this it 
has created a new faith-life. The widening 
sweep of this new faith-life is nothing less 
than a renaissance of the human spirit. 
This spiritual renaissance is distinctly of 
our own time. For we need turn back but 
a few years to find quite a contrary attitude 
toward the things of the Spirit. Matthew 
Arnold pictures the feeling of his day — 

104 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


“The sea of Faith 

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore 
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d. 

But now I only hear 

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 

Retreating, to the breath 

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear 

And naked shingles of the world.” 

Dr. George A. Gordon declares: “When I 
went to Harvard College, agnosticism was 
ascendent all over the educated world. Ma- 
terialism was browbeating everybody who 
had a faith. You who are young to-day 
know not the state of the intellectual world 
then. You find idealism in science, you find 
idealism in philosophy, you find idealism in 
history, you find idealism everywhere to- 
day. Thirty -five years ago materialism and 
agnosticism were everywhere .” — ( The Vis- 
ion on the Way , Commencement Address at 
Simmons College , 1913.) So vital and so 
swift has been the change of front that 
many, who to other tendencies of the time 
are most sensitive, as yet have not grasped 
this fact concerning the spiritual life. An 
interesting illustration of this is found in an 
105 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


incident taken from a story by one of the 
most popular novelists of the day: “So he 
idled for another half-hour at the piano, 
recalling half -forgotten melodies of the age 
of faith, which, like all art of that immortal 
age, can never again be revived. For art 
alone was not enough in those days. The 
creator of the beautiful was also endowed 
with faith; all the world was so endowed; 
and it was such an audience as never again 
can gather to inspire any maker of beautiful 
things.” 

None the less, the angel of the new dis- 
pensation has been calling to this genera- 
tion from over against the oak tree, and 
has been giving the generation to drink 
from the cup of flame. And men have 
drunk. As a result, there has emerged a 
new belief in the things of the Spirit. This 
new belief in the things of the Spirit seems 
to have as its reason for being, and to cen- 
tralize itself more and more in, a new appre- 
ciation of the Son of Mary. This new ap- 
preciation is of such a character that we 
might term it a New Feeling for Jesus. In 
a sense, of course, this new feeling is not 
106 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


new at all. It was co-existent with the 
birth of Christianity. When Jesus first be- 
gan to preach, men and women forsook 
everything to follow Him. Everything else 
in life — possessions, family, friends, ease, 
position — all things were cast aside for the 
joy of hearing and being with the new 
Teacher. Persecution only brought out in 
more consistent form this devotion to the 
Lord. When Jesus had left His followers, 
the glow of the first radiant enthusiasm 
gradually began to die down. For a while, 
it is true, it lingered, as a priceless heritage, 
in certain loyal hearts. Then was seen a 
divine fulfillment of those words — 

“ And His look, or a word He hath spoken. 
Wrought flame in another man’s heart.” 

For, through the light which on the soul 
had broken, Perpetua was inspired to 
visions immortal; Poly carp exulted to his 
judges that no fire or lion could break his 
eighty-six years of service for the Christ; 
Ignatius declared his one desire to be that 
through a martyr’s death he might be as- 
sured of seeing Jesus; Aristides, about to 
107 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


be burned, was lifted up to say that he and 
his fellow-Christians, rich in the possession 
of the grace of the Lord, were more blessed 
than all the men who were upon the face 
of the earth. And yet, the vision faded. 
Slowly but surely it departed from the 
eyes of men. 

In the Freer Manuscript have been 
found some long-lost verses of the New 
Testament which the scholars who explain 
them as a marginal interpolation have as- 
signed to the Gospel of St. Mark. Whether 
or not the verses are to be accepted, they 
indicate a thought tendency of the time in 
which they originated. After the passage in 
the Gospel where it is said that Jesus up- 
braided His disciples for their unbelief, the 
newly discovered text continues as follows: 
“And they excused themselves, saying that 
this age of lawlessness and unbelief is under 
Satan, who, through the agency of unclean 
spirits, suffers not the true power of God 
to be apprehended. For the cause, they 
say unto Christ, reveal now at once Thy 
righteousness. And Christ said unto them, 
the limit of the years of the powers of Satan 
108 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


is (not) fulfilled, but it draweth near. For 
the sake of those that have sinned was I 
given up unto death, that they may return 
unto the truth and sin no more, but may 
inherit the spiritual and incorruptible glory 
of righteousness in heaven.” 

The Great Deceiver, the “ Satan” whose 
limit of years of powers was not fulfilled, 
must have brought to bear on the early 
Church his own satanic suggestions. For 
among the causes of a great change in the 
primitive feeling for Jesus that gradually 
arose one was calculated to deceive the 
elect. Pagan emperors who hitherto had 
been associated not a little with the realm 
of that Satan whom the disciples blamed for 
the defeat of the power of God — these very 
emperors became believers. Then, as if to 
dignify their own conversion, the emperors 
sought to add to the Son of Mary every 
concomitant of earthly splendor. Royal 
garments, stiff with embroidery, were hung 
awkwardly on the Son of the carpenter. 
Imposing basilicas were erected. These 
temples of the court faith were filled with 
the pride of pompous ceremonies and stately 
109 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


chants. Even the most scrupulous of the 
saints, when they remembered how hard- 
won was this place of power and honor, 
could not but revel in it and accept all its 
gleaming outward marks as glorious sym- 
bols and visible proof of the victory of 
Jesus. And so, in time, the tender Teacher 
of Galilee, the Friend of publicans and the 
Lover of little children began to be dimmed 
under a new conception of Austere Lord- 
ship. Above the altar was erected a Judge 
whose message retained little of the flower- 
fragrance from the Love-Story of old. It 
was a threat of a surely-coming Dies Irse, 
or Day of Wrath. This conception of Jesus, 
while its basis shifted, in essence remained 
quite the same in the hands of the reform- 
ers. And so that first, clear, true knowledge 
of Jesus, that first, contagious enthusiasm 
for Him became little less than a lost idea. 

The distinctive feature concerning this 
lost idea, however, is that, in our time, it is 
being rediscovered. It is re-emerging under 
fresh conditions. It has a new relation to 
the general mind that, up to now, has been 
unknown. For this reason we may be justi- 
110 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


fied, perhaps, in saying that, after all, it is 
a new feeling for Jesus. And now this new 
appreciation of the Son of Mary is pos- 
sessing the world. It is taking captive the 
heart of humanity. Men who have noth- 
ing to do with the Church, men who are 
agnostics and skeptics and rank haters of 
the Church, are uniting to exalt Jesus. 
Philosophy and science to-day acknowledge 
that the life of the Man of Galilee “has 
radically transformed our human values and 
sits in continuous judgment over the world.” 
Social unrest and labor discontent accept 
but one solvent — the only remedy for all 
wrongs is the brotherhood of the Christ, 
the only arbitration that will cover the 
whole case is the arbitrament provided for 
in the Golden Rule of Jesus. 

Enter what realm of life you may, it 
still is the same. In art, Rodin devotes 
the highest efforts of his extraordinary 
power to picture lessons which spring from 
the teachings of the Divine Thinker. In 
music. Sir Edward Elgar, whose genius is 
leading a revival of the creative side of 
melody, turns with most tender touch to 
111 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


themes like “The Dream of Gerontius,” or 
“The Music Makers,” where is told how 
the masters of the world, the molders of 
empire, are not the great of earth, but 
poets, singers, dreamers. The music-mak- 
ers, the dreamers of dreams, they are 

“the movers and shakers 
Of the world forever, it seems/ * 

The theater shares in the trend. Not only 
in popular plays like “The Servant in the 
House,” but also in great mystical dramas, 
such as “Hamele” and “The Fool in 
Christ,” by Gerhart Hauptman, it is seen 
how even on the stage the Man of Sorrows 
holds forth His promise to the worsted, the 
submerged in life. 

The notable poets of the present time 
acknowledge that the deepest source of 
their inspiration is this dependence upon 
the Christian revelation. In none of their 
voices, however, do we seem to find so clear 
an echo of the divine as in the majestic, if 
veiled, utterance of that singer who one 
dawn, a few years ago, died and found 
112 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


death the gateway of fame. Francis Thomp- 
son, “greatest in his obscurity,” saw more 
clearly than any other seer of our day the 
immanent spirit in the inanimate. How 
surely he leads the way to a spiritual inter- 
pretation of life may be seen from his lines 
“To a Snow-Flake.” But the deepest sig- 
nificance of the singing of Francis Thomp- 
son is the fact that in the ideal passion of 
his song is revived the attitude that they 
say died in the ages of faith. As he sings, 
one sees “the traffic of Jacob’s ladder 
pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing 
Cross,” one beholds 

“ . . . Christ walking on the water, 

Not of Gennesareth, but Thames. ” 

The divine insight of the man and his sol- 
emn vision may be judged from his “Hound 
of Heaven.” Both are found fused in 
mystic splendor in the opening lines: 

“I fled Him down the nights and down the days; 
I fled Him down the arches of the years; 

I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways 
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears 
8 113 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


I hid from Him, and under running laughter. 

Up vistaed hopes I sped; 

And shot, precipitated 
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears, 

From those strong Feet that followed, followed 
after. 

But with unhurrying chase, 

And unperturbed pace. 

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, 

They beat — and a Voice beat 

More instant than the Feet — 

‘All things betray thee, who betray est Me.’ ” 

In government, it is no idle fantasy in 
international politics that, more and more, 
world events, such as those which well-nigh 
have turned Mohammedan rule out of 
Europe and have shaken down the pagan 
dynasty of China, are fulfilling the vision of 
the prophet that “the government shall be 
upon His shoulder,” — He whose name shall 
be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Prince 
of Peace. 

Finance, that last stronghold of the sec- 
ular spirit, to-day confesses the Kingship 
of Jesus. Finance, to its utmost endeavor, 
keeps the peace of the world. It confesses 
the headship of the Prince of Peace. The 
114 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


last will and testament of the late J. Pier- 
pont Morgan was a notable proof of this. 
But the editorials of the Wall Street Journal 
long have been confessing that 6 4 what this 
country needs is a revival of old-time per- 
sonal religion, the kind that our fathers and 
mothers had, who counted it good business, 
right in the middle of harvest, to take time 
to hold family prayer before breakfast, and 
who quit field work a half hour early 
Thursday night so as to get the chores done 
and go to prayer-meeting.” 

There is, it is true, one tendency of re- 
cent time that would seem to mark a con- 
sistent and determined departure from both 
the practice and the standards set by 
Jesus. This tendency is represented in the 
so-called “ School of Modern Revolt.” This 
Modern Revolt has not a few brilliant pro- 
tagonists. Among them, as the most popu- 
larly recognized, perhaps, we might name 
Nietzsche, Ibsen, and G. Bernard Shaw, 
though they all borrow many of their ideas 
from Schopenhauer. These maintain that 
the time-honored and time-worn pillars of 
society are undermined. Indeed, the an- 
115 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


cient and respectable pillars of society are 
falling. The new day will bring a new 
ethical and spiritual experience. It will be 
the unmorality of the Superman — an un- 
morality that transcends our accepted, tra- 
ditional notions of what is right and wrong. 
It will be a higher range of human develop- 
ment that has cast off the old-fashioned 
Christian standard as an outgrown shell by 
Life’s unresting sea. 

The present-day revival of the Scho- 
penhauer cult is not without deep signifi- 
cance. In it the abject pessimism of the 
companion philosopher, Hartman, is miss- 
ing. The movement itself, therefore, can 
not be interpreted as a return of that wave 
of despair which once threatened to engulf 
the thinking of the Western world. It is 
rather a protest against modern conditions 
which in their social aspects are so complex 
and disappointing. It is a sign that ma- 
terialism shall not prevail. This world, as 
has been said with truth, never consents to 
be governed except by divinely inspired 
ideals. Even discouraged hearts and minds 
that have not come into the fullness of 
116 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


light make themselves felt in this yearning 
for conquest over the material. The renais- 
sance of the Schopenhauer idea, therefore, 
is not a backward tendency. It is rather 
one phase of a divine discontent seeking a 
way of escape. Rightly interpreted, the 
“Modern Revolt,” as such, is more seem- 
ing than real. Examined in the proper set- 
ting, the idea of the Superman is the Christ- 
dream of humanity. The difference is in 
the method of approach. The Roman Em- 
peror Claudius, so widely reprobated, in one 
particular, at least, was a public benefactor. 
The imperial favorite occupation was to 
kill flies. Mr. G. Bernard Shaw is not 
nearly so dreadful or shocking as he would 
have his gentle readers believe. His vitri- 
olic flings at social shams and hypocrisy 
serve at least as a moral germicide for the 
social atmosphere. His own life is worthy 
of commendation in its attitude toward 
duty and self-sacrificing desire for the im- 
provement of humanity. In time, without 
doubt, he will come to realize and acknowl- 
edge that the solution of the whole Super- 
man problem is found in a Lazarus-like 
117 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


spiritual resurrection through the Christ, 
the Son of God. — (Dostoievsky, Crime and 
Punishment , pp. 265-267.) 

In France, where the Modern Revolt 
at one time seemed to have right of way, 
and where the gods of lubricity and deca- 
dence had made their home, even here a 
new idealism is springing up. It may not 
speculate on abstractions, it may not re- 
write “Le Contrat Social.” The theories 
of Professor Bergson may have some analo- 
gies with pragmatism. None the less, 
France is facing a new and nobler day. A 
new French idealism, “discerned in what 
Frenchmen to-day say and do, is bodying 
forth the passion of the younger generation 
for ideas.” And the inner soul of the work 
of M. Bergson is stirring new aspirations in 
every field to which the Gallic spirit has 
access. 

Thus everywhere we mark the angel 
with the cup of flame, everywhere we dis- 
cern the waning of materialistic ideals of 
life and the waxing of the New Feeling for 
Jesus. 

If it is asked to define this new feeling 
118 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 

for Jesus, we might answer at once that it 
is a glad surprise of human love. It is a 
passion of friendship and personal loyalty 
arising from a sense of immediate moral 
contact with the most beautiful and di- 
vinely lovable personality that this world 
has known. What lends redemptive sig- 
nificance to this human love for the Lord 
is the fact that through it we have access 
to the divine heart of God. We already 
have observed that one of the marks of the 
age is a deepening of faith in the unseen. 
But this deepening faith is accompanied by 
a closer reliance upon the explanation that 
the Christ gives concerning the future and 
the invisible world. It is, however, char- 
acteristic of the religious experience that, 
having come into this true faith-fellowship 
with the Lord, we are carried on out into 
a real partnership with Him in His work. 
His work is a redemptive search for souls. 
The success of the Primitive Church lay in 
the fact that the first Christians grasped 
this vital central truth of the Gospel. Each 
one of them entered personally into the 
Lord’s passion for souls. Each one of 
119 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


them, therefore, was as a burning bush 
with God in it. 

This personalized evangelism, this holy 
passion for souls is the only possible pro- 
gram for a successful Church. The Church 
has tried all other methods, and these all 
have broken down in shameful collapse. 
But now, just as the world has had enough 
of quack religions and political cure-alls 
and is getting back to the Ten Command- 
ments and the fear of the Lord, so the 
Church is awakening to the realization that 
the only way to conquest is to put into 
passionate effectiveness God’s providential 
provision for the unshepherded masses. 
That provision is that they who have drunk 
of the cup that Jesus drank of shall see the 
divine halo everywhere, and therefore with 
Him who counted nothing common or un- 
clean shall go out to find those who have 
been caught in the drift away from God — 
if need be, shall lay down their lives for 
the sheep. At every hazard they shall woo 
the unchurched and homeless, the indiffer- 
ent and undone, to hear the glad tidings of 
the Good Shepherd. That is the gist of all 

no 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


modern sociology. Adolf Harnack truly 
says that “the Gospel is a social message, 
solemn and overpowering; it is the procla- 
mation of solidarity and brotherliness in 
behalf of the poor.” Viewing the program 
of the Church from this angle alone, we 
almost might agree that “the noblest result 
of the Wesleyan movement may be found 
to be that it began the attempt that has 
not ceased from that day to this to remedy 
the guilt and ignorance, the physical suffer- 
ing and social degradation of the profligate 
and the poor.” 

But there is far more involved here than 
a personalized evangelism. Being pledged 
thus to win the people, the Church has come 
to see that the only way to accomplish this 
is to put in practice the method of the 
Master and gain the victory through a sen- 
sational Gospel. By a sensational Gospel 
we do not mean any sinister implication of 
the idea. We mean that dramatic stir in 
the social conscience and in the human 
heart which faithful preaching of the Word 
never fails to bring when it is backed up by 
the Power that rolls the stars along. Every 
121 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


faithful herald of the Gospel stands 
“pledged to cause a sensation in the com- 
munity in which he preaches or else quit 
the business.” Such sensationalism is Scrip- 
tural. Was not Jesus Himself sensational? 
How heard the city of Herod that new 
prophetic strain concerning the terrors of 
the wrath to come? To the honored guard- 
ians of the most holy faith in that age did 
not the new message seem blasphemy? 
“Now we know,” they said to the Preacher, 
“that Thou hast a devil.” We need have 
no fear. The shocking power is in the Gos- 
pel and in the Book, if we only know how 
to get it out. The cry of a loyal herald of 
the Word, as of a loyal Church, will be, 
“Son of the Living God, help me to preach 
a sensational Gospel!” 

And yet the Gospel that thus shall be 
able to shock and thrill and convert will 
have to be a full Gospel. It will need to 
be a preaching of Jesus, with all His attri- 
butes. He is not only the Wonderful, the 
Counselor, the Prince of Peace, but He is 
also the Mighty God and the Everlasting 
Father. The storm-center of human con- 
122 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 

duct and thinking to-day is the Deity of 
Jesus. Nothing can divert the human heart 
from this issue. Confronted by sin in its 
last entrenchments, the Vedanta philosophy, 
the yellow-robed Swami business, all the 
sweet unreasonableness of occultism, with 
some other rather more respectable isms, 
do not work. No. Jesus is the Redeemer 
from sin, because He Himself is the “Key 
to all mysteries and the Soul of all things/’ 
If there is any doubt in the matter, let the 
pragmatists apply the test. What does 
work? Confronted by modern social con- 
ditions, with all the tinsel taken off, with 
life stripped bare and standing forth, just 
as those who know the underworld, and also 
the upperworld, have averred that life 
really is — what does work? “Christ alone, 
by His gift of life,” says Bishop Candler, 
“can create a patriarchy of redeemed souls, 
who, through Him, are sons of God. Christ 
alone, therefore, has the right to universal 
dominion. . . . The final civilization of 

this world is to be . . . an unearthly 

Kingdom of the Spirit imposed upon men 
from the highest heavens. And because 
123 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


Christ alone can bring us this — Christ, 
the King in His beauty, clothed with an 
awful majesty, yet tenderly stooping down 
to wipe away the tears from the sorrow- 
stained cheeks of His redeemed children — 
because Christ alone, I say, can bring us 
this, He has the right to reign both here 
and in the world to come.” Men live when 
to them the river cometh. When through 
human consciousness there runs the mighty 
river of “enthroned and sovereign truths, 
of atonement and resurrection and the sub- 
lime and awful prospect of an unveiled im- 
mortality,” then it is that redemption 
“works.” Wherever, like some earthly 
overflow from that crystal river out of the 
Throne, this gulf stream of the Spirit 
touches men and women, it wins them back 
from death. It turns life itself into a glory 
land of sunshine and of spring “musical 
with the sound of many waters, flowing 
with gladsome rivulets to cheer and refresh 
the children of men.” 

This redemption, some have thought, 
is the supreme seal of the Gospel. Ardent 
lovers of the quick coming of the Kingdom 
124 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 

have concentrated their efforts upon the 
proclamation of this salvation. Who would 
deny their wisdom? Who would gainsay 
the fundamental truth that the world needs 
redemption through Christ, the Son of God? 
Who that knows the world to-day will dare 
to deny that the one hope of humanity lies 
in this redemption? On the other hand, is 
it not equally true that the Gospel includes 
another experience than that of salvation 
from sin? “What you owe to Milton,” 
says De Quincey, “is not any knowledge; 
what you owe is power — that is, exercise 
and expansion to your own latent capacity 
of sympathy with the infinite, where every 
pulse and each separate influx is a step 
upward, a step ascending as upon a Jacob’s 
ladder from earth to mysterious altitudes 
above the earth.” What we owe to the 
Gospel is not only truth that makes men 
free, but also that union with the Life of 
the Spirit which infills and girds us for con- 
quest. Into the brain of Agassiz had come 
the secret of the earth spirit, and to Agassiz 
we owe the new spiritual interpretation of 
Nature. Into the blood of Gladstone had 
125 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 

gone Homer. And in Gladstone liberal 
England found her Achilles. Into the heart 
of James Russell Lowell had burned Dante. 
And when human freedom seemed destined 
to darkness, the lark note of morning was 
heard in the voice of Lowell. Into the soul 
of John Bright there had been fused Shake- 
speare. And in the pleadings of John 
Bright were heard the tragedies of lowliest 
toil and all the brave hopes and dearer emo- 
tions of our common humanity. But into 
the being of John Bunyan rolled a wider 
and deeper tide. As if in fulfillment of the 
experience of that other John, the Divine, 
this tinker had taken and eaten the book 
out of the hand of the angel which standeth 
upon the sea and upon the earth. And 
immortality alone can cast up the account 
of John Bunyan as each Valiant-for-truth 
passes over the river and all the trumpets 
sound for him on the other side. The book 
from the hand of the angel is the book of 
immortal power. Yes, the Book and the 
Christ not only bring us assurance of re- 
demption, but they also hold forth the 
promise of power, that mysterious, divine 
126 


THE VOICE AND THE PROPHET. 


power of the Spirit of which the first step 
is “a flight, an ascending into another 
element where earth is forgotten,” and His 
legions of angels keep watch and ward. 

It is this power that to-day we must 
have. This exercise and expansion of our 
latent capacity of sympathy with the in- 
finite, this we must have if we are to lift 
ourselves up to be partakers in the think- 
ing, life and purposes of God. The world 
knows this. It is the mark of our time that 
humanity is awakening to this fact. John 
R. Mott, who has gone through all lands, 
says, “What sinful men up and down this 
world want is not more teaching as to what 
they ought to do and be in higher ideals 
and in fresh examples, but power which 
energizes the will to do its duty.” — ( Queen's 
Hall Address , London.) This energizing 
power we find only in the Book and in the 
Christ — “Thou hast the words of eternal 
life.” The Divine Word has that vibrating 
vitality that touches the sleeping con- 
science and leaps from life to life. The 
Bible is a medium of influence through 
which the energizing power enables the will 
127 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


to do its duty. He of whom it was said, 
“The Word was with God, and the Word 
was God” — He alone has the right to say, 
“My words are spirit, and they are life.” 

The first promise of Jesus to His dis- 
ciples was that they should have power. 
The last promise of the resurrected Lord to 
His disciples was that they should have 
power after that the Holy Ghost was come 
upon them. And it is through this Spirit- 
filled power that we may enter into that 
final, supreme promise which makes the last 
page of the Book to shine like the dawn. 
We can have the gift of the morning star. 
Yes, the morning star — and that is the best 
star, for it is the star of hope, the radiant 
emblem of victory. The morning star — 
that is celestial assurance of conquest, for 
in the storm-swept night of the heart of 
humanity it is foretoken of the joy of a 
new day. The night is far-spent, it says, 
darkness well-nigh is done; soon, brushing 
away all tears of earth, dews of the night 
of weeping, the Dayspring Himself from on 
high will visit us. Over all humanity will 
break the morning light of the children of 
God. 128 


PART II. 


THE WATER-WINE-CUP OF DEATH- 
DEDICATION. 

“And it came to pass on the morrow that , lo, 
a voice called me, saying, Esdras, open 
thy mouth, and drink that I 
give thee to drink” 


Away from the market and glory happeneth everything that 
is great; away from the market and glory have ever lived the 
inventors of new values. 

Thus spake Zarathustra. — Friedrich Nietzsche. 

He (King Bomba) was sealed to his idols as surely as Cavour 
to his ideals. The degradation of the ideal into the idol consti- 
tutes the real fall of man. ... To Bomba, they (the political 
prisoners) were an embodied Nemesis, a warning that no matter 
how strongly tyranny, be it of Church, State, or army, may be 
entrenched, it can never safely neglect, despise, or crucify the 
righteous. “By their long memories, the gods are known.” 

Life of Cavour. William Roscoe Thayer. 

The upright man in justice bold 
Who dares his steadfast purpose hold. 

Unshaken hears the mob’s seditious cries. 

The threat’ning despot’s angry mien defies. 

Round him the south wind vainly raves, — 

The stormy king of Adria’s waves. 

Before the thund’ring Jove with mighty hands, 

’Neath falling skies, their ruin he withstands. 

— Horace, Odes, III, 3. 

Carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes 
of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his pas- 
sive eyes, Pip saw the multitudinous God-omnipresent, coral 
insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal 
orbs. He saw God’s foot upon the treadle of the loom, and 
spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man’s 
insanity is heaven’s sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, 
man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is 
absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised. 
— Herman Melville, Moby Dick, page 360, 


CHAPTER I. 


THE ANGEL’S CUP AND FRAN- 
CESCO BERNARDONE. 

“One day of sunshine,” says Joachim di 
Fiore, a thirteenth century mystic, “there 
came to me a youth of exquisite beauty. 
Holding out to me a cup, he said, ‘Joachim, 
drink this, for it is divine.’ ” When Jo- 
achim had drunk so much as he thought he 
had need of, he gave back the cup. But 
the youth, with indignation, refused it, say- 
ing, “If thou hadst drunk it all, there is 
not a science in the world in which thou 
wouldst not have been instructed per- 
fectly. But now thou shalt have knowledge 
only of the Scriptures.” That one draught 
from the cup of the angel made Joachim the 
forerunner of a new age. It made him the 
cup-bearer to one greater who came after. 
For the cup which the angel refused, Jo- 
achim gave to Francesco Bernardone. Fran- 
cesco kept the cup. He drank of it until 
his heart was music and sweet fire. He 
131 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


drank of it until his life was a fountain of 
understanding. He drank of it until he 
became the Pilot-Flame of a new experience 
for humanity. Then one morning, on a 
mountain, Francesco met the angel. With 
hands which no longer dared bear the cup, 
Francesco gave it back to celestial keeping. 
The angel kissed Francesco. The mortal 
hands and feet and heart were sealed with 
the marks of the Crucified. Then, ere the 
angel vanished, he said, “ Francesco, hark, 
how heaven is choiring for thee!” And lo, 
the harping symphonies and sevenfold hal- 
lelujahs of that hour have not died away 
unto this hour. 

This is the story that now we must tell. 
But forewarning is given that here is the 
life-recital of a man who, judged by the 
standards of time, most woefully failed. 
He was no captain, leading conquering le- 
gions across quaking continents. He was 
no imposing lawgiver, no financial colossus, 
reading his history in a nation’s eyes. No. 
He was only a minstrel — a bare-foot, singing 
troubadour. As a minstrel, he was no 
“maestro” of his craft — not even a lesser 
132 


THE WATER- WINE-CUP. 


poet. His singing was only a lyrical cry. 
Yet that lyrical cry was the beginning of 
Italian vernacular song. 

Francesco was not a famous teacher. 
Yet he inspired to become his followers 
many illustrious citizens, such as Gregory 
IX, Louis IX of France, Christopher Co- 
lumbus, Queen Elizabeth of Hungary, Roger 
Bacon, Bonaventura, Cimabue, Giotto, 
Dante. 

He was not a celebrated theologian. 
He was a child of nature. To him a flower 
was the court of Deity. With Nature, 
“the dear old Nurse,” he tried, in humblest 
way, by the Spirit’s shining, to 

“. . . read what is still unread 

In the manuscripts of God.” 

But that mysticism carried in its cowl the 
Renaissance. 

He was not a statesman. He simply 
loved common folk and wanted all the chil- 
dren of God to love one another. Child- 
hood, he said, is the Gate Beautiful of Life. 
So he taught little children to sing trouba- 
133 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


dour love songs about Jesus. Whenever 
children are heard singing Christmas carols 
or are seen representing the manger scene 
on Christmas eve, let it be remembered that 
children first were taught to keep Christ- 
mas eve after such manner by Francesco 
Bernardone. 

He was not a social reformer. Sam 
Hadley had the social idea of Francesco. 
“The best way,” said the Water Street 
expert, “to reach a dead-beat and bum 
who is in the gutter is to hit him in the 
stomach — with a beefsteak and a loaf of 
bread.” And yet, sang our minstrel, what 
society needs more than it needs a new 
social form is a new spiritual impetus. 
And back up to this high-clear, apostolic 
note is swinging the whole reform program. 

By this time it is clear that in this 
troubadour we face a paradox. He was 
poor, yet he made humanity rich. His life 
appeared aimless. Quickly was it burned 
out. Yet that life was no brief candle; it 
was a splendid torch. It was a great and 
shining fire which he had got hold of for 
the moment, and which he was determined 
134 


THE WATER-WINE-CUP. 


to make burn as brightly as possible before 
he handed it on to future generations. 

He never dreamed of being a Master- 
Builder. He merely sought to serve hu- 
manity as the flower gives its fragrance and 
the dawn gives its dew. But now mark the 
wonder of a life that thus for Love’s sweet 
sake seemingly is squandered. Of the five 
workmen who, since Jesus, have lifted hu- 
manity up nearest to God — of these five, 
Saul of Tarsus, Augustine, Martin Luther, 
John Wesley, and our singing Francesco 
Bernardone, the little minstrel has not let 
his corner sag. 

It was toward the close of the twelfth 
century. In the Apennine town of Assisi, 
in Umbria, Italy, there lived a prosperous 
cloth merchant, Pietro Bernardone. Re- 
turning home one day from one of his 
many absences, Bernardone found that 
there had been born to him a son. The 
mother already had had the infant chris- 
tened in the cathedral as Giovanni — John. 
Mothers have love-divination. A spiritual 
John the child always would be. The 
father, honoring the France of his success- 
135 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


ful trade, changed the Giovanni to Fran- 
cesco — Francis. The little one was taught 
French, the language of commerce. Prac- 
tical was this seller of cloth. 

But he was not so wise after all. For 
French was also the language of chivalry. 
The voice of knight errantry and noble 
adventure was the French singing of the 
troubadour minstrels. Everywhere at this 
moment these wandering lyrists were awak- 
ening brilliant festivities and chivalresque 
courts of love. They were lifting up lark 
notes of which the echoes never will die. 
Romantic adventurers, like William de 
Cabestanh and Pierre Vidal, with their 
melodies were setting all Europe sighing 
and singing. 

“The day when first I saw thee, lady sweet, 

When first thy beauty deigned on me to shine,” — 

that sounds like Tennyson. 

“With my breath I drink the air 
That Provence, my country, sends me,” — 

is not that Wordsworth? 

With these singers the cloth merchant 
had comraded. By cities, villages, and 
136 


THE WATER-WINE-CUP. 


castles, together they had wandered. As 
they went, Bernardone trafficked his wares. 
W T hen at home the father told his little 
lad the wonders of the far country, and he 
taught him to sing the ballads of the trou- 
badours. Unwise seller of cloth! In heart, 
Francis became a troubadour. The grow- 
ing boy would be a knight errant, an ad- 
venturer. In time the youth, in Assisi’s 
Court of Love, was chosen King of the 
Feast. To be a careless feaster in the 
thirteenth century was bad. But it was not 
so regrettable as it is to be a careless feaster 
in the twentieth century. For to be a 
trifler at the banquet of life to-day is to 
drink from the Circean cup of which the 
votaries at the head of the table are apt to 
be apes and swine. 

Standing on the hillside above Assisi, 
Umbria lies at the feet of the beholder — 
Umbria — “that tender, sweet, heroic, mys- 
tic Umbria, in its ring of blue hills, where 
hang suspended the white cities of Foligno, 
Montefalco, and Spello. Nearer, straight 
before, on the edge of its precipice, rearing, 
like its own miraculous griffin, a fantastic 
137 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 

bulk, frowns Etruscan Perugia. Yes, there 
are earthly spots so lovely that one wants 
to clasp them to the bosom.” On this hill- 
side, in the riper years of his young man- 
hood, Francis stood one morning, like that 
adventurer whom the poet pictures agaze 
on a peak in Darien. Across the sunlit 
plain he looked, and as he watched, slowly 
there rose in memory the scenes of the past. 
Francesco saw himself, under Assisi’s gon- 
falon, marching to storm Perugia. He be- 
held himself made prisoner and for a year 
close held. He recalled his idle prison boast 
that the world yet should bow to him as a 
prince. He saw himself set at liberty, and 
thereafter fall at once a more shameful 
bondman to pleasure. Now, from a bed of 
almost mortal illness, the unhappy rioter 
has crept out to this spot to brood upon 
this prospect of peace and loveliness. But 
somehow, he can see only the emptiness 
of his days. Is it the solitude of a soul in 
which there is no altar? Away with such 
maundering. As soldier of fortune, he will 
drown this puling mood. So, with Walter 
Brienne, swash-buckler, Francesco buckles 
138 


THE WATER-WINE-CUP. 

on harness and sword. But inglorious, the 
son of Bernardone returns. His is to be 
no battle of the warrior, with confused noise 
and garments rolled in blood. He is to be 
like one of those knights errants of whom 
the troubadours sing, 4 ‘Their dwelling place 
is under the shadow of their lances, and 
they cook their food on the ashes of con- 
quered hatreds.” While yet he is on the 
way, returning to Assisi, Francesco, in a 
vision at night, beholds an angel stand, 
summoning him to some mysterious enter- 
prise which shines refulgent, but still is 
veiled. 

Were Victor Hugo telling this tale, he 
would say, “Behold a cosmic battle in the 
universe of a stricken soul!” Here and 
there we catch gleams of the strife. There 
is more wantoning. Then there is a pil- 
grimage to Rome. We hear of nocturnal 
wanderings, weird phantasms, agonizing 
wrestlings. Finally, do not smile, the cru- 
cifix over the altar of the ruined church of 
San Damiano, near Assisi, takes pity on the 
youth. Yes, this old crucifix, which one 
still can see to-day, bows its blood-stained 
139 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


head and whispers, “Repair my Church!” 
Contrite, but still mistaking the Divine 
moving, the struggler, stone by stone, re- 
pairs the ruined sanctuary. 

The cloth merchant is distraught. When 
did the man who is fat in stuff, with his 
soul partaking of that fatness — when did 
he ever yet recognize the blowing of the 
thin horn from the Castle of the Twice- 
Born? Goethe once visited Assisi. He 
came to gaze upon the fagade of the ancient 
temple of Minerva, which stands in the 
market place. Having viewed the relic of 
pagan culture, the poet turned about and 
left the town contemptuously. Never a 
thought did he give to the happier sunrise 
of the spirit which as with a divine beati- 
tude had transfigured all that holy moun- 
tain. Never a glance did he deign toward 
that other high place of the seekers after 
God. But how other could it be? To this 
man, so adequate to himself, the earth was 
eloquent, but the skies silent. As one of his 
biographers has remarked, “For man it is 
a weary way to God, but a wearier far to 
any demigod.” 


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THE WATER- WINE-CUP. 


The cloth merchant berates his boy for 
his incomprehensible folly. In the central 
square of the town, in presence of the 
Bishop and the people, Francesco strips 
himself naked. His garments he hands to 
his father. “Until this time,” he says, 
“I have called Pietro Bernardone my 
father. But now I desire to serve God. 
From henceforth I desire to say nothing 
else than ‘Our Father who art in Heaven!’ ” 
Outside the gate through which had 
passed Wolfgang von Goethe, there stands 
to-day a tiny chapel. It was built by the 
Benedictines. It is called St. Mary of the 
Angels. This chapel had been in ruins. 
But it, too, had been repaired by the son 
of Bernardone. The young man was sit- 
ting before the altar of the chapel one 
morning in meditation. A priest was in- 
toning the lesson for the day. The dreamer 
was the only hearer. Of more than middle 
height, the young man was dark, with a 
face that was delicate and kindly. His eyes 
were black. Had he spoken, there would 
have been heard in his voice a sound like 
the sound of the sea. “As ye go,” droned 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 


the priestly ministrant at the altar, “preach, 
saying, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is at 
hand.’ Heal the sick; cleanse the lepers; 
raise the dead; cast out devils. Freely ye 
have received, freely give.” Suddenly the 
young man leaps to his feet. Does he see 
standing before him the angel of Joachim 
holding out the cup and saying to him, 
“Francesco, drink this, for it is divine?” 
We know not. His follower who tells the 
story says that Francis hurries from the 
chapel. He throws away purse, staff and 
shoes. To the first shepherd whom he 
meets he gives his clothing, taking in ex- 
change the rough frock of the shepherd. 
He will keep the sheep. He will awaken 
shepherds who sleep! It is the 24th day 
of February, 1209. From the cloisters of 
Spain, at the same time, there comes a 
lean man with modest air — Dominic of 
Castile. These two together will divide the 
world between them — Francis the Lover 
and Dominic of the Sword. 

In the Metropolitan Museum in New 
York, in the exhibition of the work of Ro- 
din, two pieces of sculpture stand over 
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THE WATER- WINE-CUP. 

against one another. One, of dark bronze, 
is the figure of a man, bending forward in 
gloomy reverie, with head resting upon the 
hand. Opposite the bronze figure is a rough 
block of discolored white marble. Up 
through this block of marble is thrust a 
snowy hand. In the palm of the hand is 
the figure of a man. This man, with pa- 
thetic tenderness, is clasping to his heart a 
woman. The gloomy figure in bronze is 
entitled, “The Thinker, a Figure for the 
Gate of Hell.” That dai^k image might 
stand for Dominic of Castile, out of whose 
somber thinking and intellectual hatred of 
heresy came the fuel and torch for many a 
fire of dreadful persecution. The snow- 
white hand is entitled “The Hand of God.” 
The figure of the man on that dazzling 
palm might picture Francis of Assisi. For 
from the contagious, God-inspired love of 
Francis there came to humanity a breath 
from Heaven. Up from the gates of night, 
at the summons of his loving spirit, started 
men like grave - wrapped Lazarus who, 
through the walls of the tomb, heard the 
Son of God bidding him “Come forth!” 

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THE CUP OF FIRE. 


Assisi was dumbfounded. Was there 
ever transformation like this? Blundering 
Assisi! Fat Assisi! And yet sapient Assis- 
ians. For the reckless spendthrift who 
once had flaunted it among them they now 
behold a servitor in their streets. At their 
feasts he had worn the King’s wreath. Now 
their crusts call forth his gratitude. 
“Pazzo!” quoth the townsmen. “Pazzo — 
madman!” W T ere they not wise in their 
generation? Whenever some regenerator of 
life breaks through the hedge of tradition 
and does what is contrary to things as they 
are, does not the wise world pityingly label 
him “Pazzo ’ ’ — 4 4 madman ? ” 44 Lunatic ! ’ ’ 
they shouted after Dr. Jenner, who dis- 
covered vaccination. 44 Crazy,” they called 
DeCarles, discoverer of steam. 44 Cromwell 
hath a devil,” agreed the Cavaliers. 44 Wen- 
dell Phillips, the crank!” 44 John Brown, 
the insane man.” 44 Paul, thou art beside 
thyself!” But when the mob shouts 44 Mad- 
man!” the echoes, curiously enough, an- 
swer 44 Saint!” The twice-born are just 
sufficiently beside themselves to understand 
that the hope of humanity is in this divine 
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insanity of noble souls intoxicated with 
other- worldliness . 

This madman drew after him the third 
part of Assisi’s heaven. The youth flocked 
to him as to another David in Adullam. 
One scene stands forth with theatrical ef- 
fect. Around a chapel in a wood at mid- 
night gather sober devotees bearing lighted 
torches. Into the circle of light darts a 
terrified young girl. She is Clare Scifi, 
wealthiest and loveliest maiden of Assisi. 
From the palace of the Scifis she has stolen 
away to join the troubadour-beggar. W r ith 
a smile of welcome, Francis receives the 
fugitive. From the slender girlish neck he 
unclasps the baubles of vanity. He cuts 
off the long, fair hair. Tresses and jewels 
together, as dregs of Babylon, are heaped 
on the altar. Young dreamer and maid 
together kneel in consecration, of her vow. 
Then, like children, hand in hand, the two 
pass out into a new world. It is said that 
in Assisi, long before, Clare had looked on 
Francis with a girl’s interest. As she 
listened to his words, her heart, despite 
herself, had gone out to him. How can we 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 


read such a riddle of mingled human emo- 
tion and celestial calling? In his master- 
piece, Fra Angelico has pictured two angels. 
They are standing on the gleaming threshold 
of opening heaven. There, ere they pass 
to heavenly duties, they pause to exchange 
a holy kiss. The angels are Francis and 
Clare. 

But angels are not above suspicion. 
Francis, therefore, said to Clare one day 
that they must part until snowy Mt. Su- 
basio, whereon they stood, should put forth 
flowers. As the young man turned away 
he heard the girl laugh — “Look, Brother 
Francesco, look, these snowdrifts bloom 
with roses!” In the cemetery of Pere la 
Chaise, in Paris, on a certain November 
afternoon each year there is to be seen a 
bunch of violets laid on a tomb. The tomb 
is that of Abelard and Helo’ise. Yes, there 
are love stories from which Time, that old 
thief, can steal nothing. Dante and Bea- 
trice. Francesca da Rimini and Paoli, pas- 
sion-pale, still wander, like storm-driven 
doves. Tristan and Isolde still drink the 
wonder drink. Faust and Margaret still 
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pluck the great red rose, petal by petal, 
recking little that the petals fall like plashes 
of blood into a bottomless gulf. But here 
is a love that as yet knows no shadow. 
The song in the heart of these two Umbrian 
dreamers, whose very names sing themselves 
— Francesco and Chiara — the song in their 
souls is like the bird carol that with a melody 
born of the skies salutes the dawn on the 
evergreen hills of life. 

So, facing a rising sun, with the shad- 
ows all falling behind, out went the vision- 
aries to proclaim to the world their joyful 
evangel. They have been a far- wandered 
folk. Over all seas have they voyaged. 
Into all lands have they come to rear their 
monuments. In every tongue have they 
told their story. Into our own far West 
they came. During the eighteenth century 
he was a son of Francis who, in Southern 
California, founded the missions to the 
Indians — Junipero Serra. While the At- 
lantic slope was reddened by the fratri- 
cidal strife of king’s men and colonists, the 
shores of the Pacific, under the gentle hands 
and spirit of the Franciscans, broke forth 
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into singing. Everywhere resounded songs 
of Christian redmen. Beasts were fed and 
multiplied. Bounteous harvests made val- 
leys golden. The sunset land, says Juni- 
pero, was “filled with large vines of grapes 
and roses that were like the roses of Cas- 
tile.” 

Sad and cracked are the bells of San 
Gabriel. Around the grave of Brother 
Junipero drift ocean sands little hindered. 
But, so long as California remembers her 
own romantic birth, so long as through her 
gate called San Francisco the tides swirl 
and Brother Sun smiles before parting, 
there will be told to her children the story 
of Junipero Serra and his missionary brothers 
of St. Francis. 


148 


CHAPTER II. 


FIRE-BRINGING MINSTRELS. 

What was it all about? What were these 
Utopians attempting? Were they wander- 
ing as beggars to escape work? W^ere they 
experimenting with a new social theory in 
order to relieve the tedium of life? No. 
They were endeavoring to right the evil 
times. And these were the days of which, 
before Francis, another troubadour had 
been singing — 

“The world is very evil, 

The times are waxing late. 

Be sober and keep vigil, 

The Judge is at the gate.” 

Prophets of the Age of the Spirit, like Jo- 
achim di Fiore, must have imagined that 
that thirteenth century was, indeed, the end 
of things. The century, it is true, invented 
spectacles, glass mirrors, and striking clocks. 
But were not these objective symbols of 
the blindness, vanity, and servitude of the 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 

century? Men were either ruffians or saints. 
Wars were of Moloch. Enmities were un- 
speakable. Despots lorded it like Cyclops. 
“Men lost the habit of laughter. Priest 
and soldier were supreme. Life was one 
long panic. The race crawled, crept, hid, 
dodged, secreted, lied, and nearly died.” 
In England the cheapest copy of the Bible 
cost $150. A daily wage was four cents. 
Italians made good cheer with herbs and 
a few cooked nuts. Frenchmen for their 
daily meat had famine and tears. In his 
country, says Boccaccio, Pestilence walked 
and wasted everywhere. Myriads, who 
gayly had dined with their children, supped 
with their ancestors. The Benedictine ab- 
beys of the time, despising spiritual func- 
tion, had become trust corporations of 
predatory wealth. “Abbots were as purple 
as their wines. Monks fed and chattered 
like parrots in the refectory.” Secular 
clergy were no less faithless. Bishops were 
“void of conscience, drunken, lost in sensu- 
ality.” “Jesus, the Savior of the world,” 
was an idea as meaningless as the archaic 
smile of Greek sculpture, or the ecstatic 
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THE WATER- WINE-CUP. 


“Hu!” of a howling dervish. The Church 
cloaked Anti-Christ. Pastoral care of souls 
was turning populous provinces into heaps 
of ashes. Two popes of the age were called 
Innocent. Of these two Innocents, one 
damned with the voice of simulated love, 
the other had the mouth of Buddha and 
the heart of a snake. 

The spiritual reformer who would grap- 
ple such an age must needs be a superman 
of spiritual adventure. Such was Francesco 
Bernardone. He realized that the attempt 
would quench his powers; that the struggle 
would be grandiose, mortal; that it must end 
in his crucifixion. None the less, to battle 
would he go. Like Osiris, he would go, not 
with horses and chariots, but with music. 
And so, with the burning love of his own 
life-torch flinging fire on earth, Francesco 
Bernardone advanced on Chaos and the 
Dark. 

The first thing that he did appeared to 
justify the notion that he was “ Pazzo.” 
He began to preach to birds, fishes, wolves 
and beasts of the field. Hamlet only 
feigned madness when he saw animals in 
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the heavens. Francis was crazy, say the 
sane, when he discerned heaven in dumb 
brutes. But let the sane pause a moment. 
In a notable sermon, John Wesley claims 
the benefits of redemption for brute crea- 
tion. Nothing, seemingly, could be more 
bizarre, more grotesque. Yes, says the ar- 
dent redemptionist, even the elephant and 
the worm, the painted butterfly and the 
shark shall be delivered from the bondage 
of corruption into the glorious liberty of 
the children of God. The days of their 
groaning shall be ended, and God shall wipe 
away all tears from their eyes. If some 
zealous ichthyologist or zoologist offers cap- 
tious criticism that is calculated to disturb 
the antiquated theology of Mr. Wesley, the 
placid Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, 
soon demonstrates that he is not grist for 
literary persiflage. For his very next sen- 
tence sounds the deeps of mystic philosophy, 
while it also is a flight, an almost weird 
fore-grasping and anticipation of that eter- 
nal progress of the life of the Spirit which 
is the very last word in modern philosophy. 
May not, he says, the all-gracious Creator, 
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indwelling and infilling all things, may not 
He even raise our brute brothers higher in 
the scale of beings, so that they shall be 
exalted and refined and made capable of 
knowing and loving and enjoying the Au- 
thor of their being? 

Wonderful nature-child of Assisi, to have 
comprehended all this through untutored 
spiritual apprehension. Without doubt, it 
was because his soul was flooded with this 
wonder of the spiritual unity of the uni- 
verse that to Francis the larks, the fishes, 
and the wolves were his sisters and his 
brothers. When, from a heart throbbing 
with love for his feebler little brothers, 
Francis preached to them, he began that 
campaign for the prevention of cruelty to 
animals which is one of the glories of Chris- 
tian civilization. 

But more far-reaching than his inhu- 
manity to dumb brutes is the inhumanity 
of man to man. War — the Man on the Red 
Horse — was the Devourer of that age. War 
was endless. It involved every interest of 
life. And in upon that age of frenzied mili- 
tarism came the little shepherd-coated min- 
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strel as the original peace man. He first 
gave the world to see that war is not noble 
or beautiful. He refused to join the conspir- 
acy to deck war with grim splendor. On 
stricken field he saw only the rigid, upturned 
face of the dead. Above the shouts of the 
victors he heard the sobs of broken hearts 
in ruined homes that follow the red dint of 
the battle-ax. “No,” sang this minstrel to 
the wild, armed throng, “No, not glory, nor 
power, nor might, but 

“Love sets my heart on fire! 

Love, Love, O Jesu!” 

The man who discovered the potato 
wrought a nobler and more lasting work 
than did Julius Caesar. In his analysis of 
the character of Julius Caesar, Montaigne, 
in his usual acute way, has shown how small 
part, in the true life of men, successful 
selfish ambitions or war victories play. 
Opinions might differ as to who is the great 
captain in American history. Is he Wash- 
ington who conquered our English fathers, 
or Taylor who conquered our neighbors, or 
Grant who conquered our brothers, or Stone- 
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wall Jackson who conquered himself? But 
Major Surgeon Walter Reed conquered 
Death. By experiments with the yellow 
fever mosquito, the dread anopheles maculi 
pennis , Major Reed at last put conquering 
hands on that old Yellow Fever Demon 
which, in south lands of earth, had slain 
the third part of men. Who, then, among 
these American conquerors is most benefi- 
cent? 

In this age of frenzied militarism, when 
nations vociferate peace while they provide 
greater armaments, it would be useless, 
without doubt, to draw pictures of what 
the money spent for armaments of war 
could accomplish through labors of peace. 
But with one fetich, at least, let us have 
done. The captains and the kings depart. 
The salt of the earth, the light of the world 
remains in the labors of toilers who did 
their work hidden, often, from the knowl- 
edge of men. Who, now, can not tell the 
stories of Dr. Morton and Lister and Pas- 
teur, or Whitney with his cotton-gin, or 
Burbank who has enlarged the field of hu- 
man food, or Fulton who put fiery wings to 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 


the burden-bearers of the sea? But the 
vital thought is to realize that at this mo- 
ment, hidden away from the sight of the 
world, are unknown heroes and heroines 
working patiently in obscurity, as once did 
these others, for the betterment of hu- 
manity. These are the minstrels whose 
songs will make sane the age. These are 
they who have caught the fire which the 
Christ flung on earth. In their love- 
squandered lives they will bring that fire 
to aid and to cheer the world. Zarathustra, 
therefore, was not so mad, after all, when 
he maintained that everything that is great 
happeneth away from the market and glory, 
and that the inventors of new values always 
have lived away from the market and glory. 

But what was it that put in the soul of 
a barefoot singer such a magic wand over 
the human heart? Francis had the starry 
vision. He saw large. To him we might 
apply that figure of another, and say that 
he saw the divine halo resting on common 
humanity. In the most commonplace life 
he saw the God-light within shine out to 
transfigure that life. He saw the divine 
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significance still remaining, even in ruined 
lives. And so into the hearts of men he 
yearned to breathe a new enthusiasm for 
the divine life as promised by the Kingdom 
of God in this present world. Thus it was 
that, under the fiery impetus of his spirit, 
4 ‘men started up from their slumber like 
exiles who hear again the dimly remem- 
bered accents of their native tongue.” 
Francis of Assisi was, indeed, the John 
Wesley of the thirteenth century whom the 
Church did not cast out. Like Wesley, 
Francis agonized for souls, waiting for the 
revealing of the sons of God, even among 
the humblest of mortals. To the same end, 
with Wesley, as also with the apostles, 
Francis became a field preacher. This 
troubadour made the grass his pulpit, and 
the heavens became his sounding-board. 
To his angelic compulsion such multitudes 
became obedient that the only way in which 
he could shepherd them was by forming a 
vast lay association which he called The 
Third Order. 

This Third Order of Francis was one of 
the most romantic folk movements in the 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 


history of Europe. The members of the 
order resembled the early Methodists. They 
were distinguished by a peculiar garb. 
They abstained from strong drink, profan- 
ity, gambling and wantoning. They re- 
fused to bear arms in war. Devoted to 
pious works, they held mass meetings for 
preaching, exhortation and prayer. They 
carried religion into their daily lives and 
occupations. 

But the way of God always has been a 
singing way. The people of God always 
have been a singing people. So, now, in 
festal companies, along highways and over 
slopes where vineyards and olive trees 
marked their happy toil, the followers of 
the troubadour wandered singing, singing 
in the beautiful tongue the new love songs 
of Francis which Brother Pacifico, once a 
king of the knightly minstrels, had set to 
music. There was no resisting the spell. 
First Umbria, then Italy, then Europe and 
the West — all were lifted for a gleaming 
moment upon the sunlit crest of a tidal 
wave of religious ecstasy. The influence of 
one life, like a gulf stream of the Spirit, 
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swept around the world. To far distant 
hearts was borne the pearly nautilus shell 
of the faith of that life, wafted on and on 
by the sweet breath from its own spice 
islands. The warmth of this gulf stream of 
faith and love kissed many widely sundered 
shores to tropical verdure and delight. The 
whole century thrilled responsive. Men 
saw visions, amorous and chaste. They 
breathed in aspirations and fiery enthu- 
siasms. Daughters prophesied. Prophets 
hailed a coming new kingdom of righteous- 
ness and peace. Art came to flower. 
Cathedral building was religion. Science 
and speculation, music, letters and the- 
ology took on a brightness that shed celes- 
tial luster over love and hope. The age 
became creative. It was a wonder epoch, 
marking the redemption of mankind — of 
all ages the one most like our own. “A 
miracle,” says one. Not so. That thir- 
teenth century simply had found a man. 
The man had gripped the heart of the age. 
Upon it he had set his mark. Now that 
that cycle of time has passed away, he rises 
before us as the one graphic man who will 
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“stand forever as its picture and commen- 
tary. His age crowds itself into him, and, 
holding him up to the world, says, ‘Know 
me by him!’ ” 

The impetus of this new birth of the 
spirit bore Francis himself out into the 
pagan world. Having made a great light 
to shine upon the land of his nativity, 
Francis yearned to dim Mohammed’s wax- 
ing might behind the glory of the Cross. He 
journeyed to Egypt; preached to the sultan. 
Like Moses, the new prophet seems to have 
confounded the Egyptian magicians. But 
by what spiritual miracle, we know not. 
The account says that, at his call, there 
leaped up heavenly fire. Tradition adds 
that the sultan shook in his sandals and 
cried, “Pazzo — Madman!” That was what 
the infidel said concerning the diminutive 
Balkan kingdoms when they faced him 
with leaping fire. But the Divine Powers 
were involved in the Balkan episode. And 
so, probably, in the earlier facing of the 
two-world faiths there was some fire. 

One peaceful afternoon, on the Adriatic 
Sea, a gondolier rowed us to an island where, 
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on his return from the East, Francis had 
rested. A Brother Minor showed us the 
cell where The Little Poor Man had ban- 
queted on celestial music. We sought to 
converse in broken Latin. The classic 
tongue had faded from the writer’s grasp. 
The Latin of the Brother, to apply the 
phrase of a small boy who was of the party, 
was “even badder.” Truth to tell, the 
girth of the Brother would seem to indi- 
cate that he was accustomed to dine upon 
far other than the classics or celestial music. 
But long will there remain with us the re- 
membrance of the affectionate, hemispheric 
smile of that rotund, wine-stained, garlic- 
fragrant exponent of asceticism. And yet, 
what an ironic outcome to the dream se- 
raphic — the person of the dreamer to become 
well-nigh an object of worship while his 
vision and prophecy are despised. 

In a rocky gorge on the mountain back 
of Assisi there is a labyrinth of connecting 
caverns. It is called the Carceri, and was 
the favorite resort of Francis. There is the 
tiny niche for rest and prayer. On the rock 
floor is a wooden block which served as pil- 
n 161 


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low. Above hangs the crucifix. Here lin- 
gers something from the old dream. The 
cavern monks offered us strangers who were 
there that day a share in their bread, cheese 
and wine. Still bloom the orchids, violets 
and sweet-scented cyclamen which Francis 
loved. In a hole in the rocks of the prec- 
ipice crouched a young monk doing pen- 
ance. With his murmured “Peccavi” in 
our ears, we marked far below, gleaming 
like a pearl in a belt of emerald, the little 
town of Assisi. On its spur of Apennine it 
lay asleep. In palace, wall and tower, in 
steep streets and majestic fane, it was pic- 
turesque, unchanged, as if there had not 
slipped by nearly a thousand tragic years. 

The physical forces of Francis, how- 
ever, now well-nigh were exhausted. In 
the steep rock of Averna, back of the moun- 
tain of Assisi, a mysterious spiritual experi- 
ence had come to change and still further 
elevate his life and influence. His followers 
said that he had received from the angel of 
God the stigmata of the Lord. It is need- 
less at this day to go into any such mystic 
and perplexing matters of soul-sesthesia. 

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Suffice to say that henceforth, while the 
bodily powers of the mortal man steadily 
failed, the spiritual reaches of him grew 
vaster, ever more exalted. With the more 
starry vision there came in consequence a 
more pronounced contempt for the honors 
and pretensions of earth. But there was 
one power of earth which boded ill to any 
such spiritual independence. The Papacy, 
with its universal pretensions, loomed across 
the seraphic dream. Face to face with the 
Angel of the Church of Rome, the torch of 
the Saint burned low and blue, as Shake- 
speare makes all honest torches do when 
ghosts of the Dark are abroad. 

Whence came the disaster? The answer 
is simple. The Papacy sought to change 
the direction of the brotherhood of Francis. 
It laid ecclesiastical hand on the gay, happy 
fellowship and sought to impose upon it 
monkish rules and purpose. So might the 
brotherhood be made a pillar of the Papacy. 
What, rob this free-hearted, laboring com- 
munity of sensible people, who were sick of 
pretense and splendor, and therefore were 
trying to live the simple life — rob them of 
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their dream and turn them back into prison 
— was this to be the end of it all? Alas, 
Brother Jupiter, with thy quips and pranks! 
What door, Big Brother Masseo, now wilt 
thou keep? Who will listen, Brother Pa- 
cifico, to thy chivalrous verses? What bas- 
kets, Brother Giles, wilt thou make? And 
how, now, Brother Francis, will it fare with 
thy grasshoppers? 

But so speed the dreams of life away. 
A threefold fatality, says the creator of 
Jean Valjean, weighs upon us all — the fa- 
tality of dogmas, the oppression of laws, 
the inexorableness of things. Mingled with 
these fatalities, and deeper than all these, 
is that supreme fatality, the human heart. 
Shall one who, under all these darkening 
fates, marches against Rome, shall he pre- 
vail, and he only a silly singer? John Huss 
and John Wycliffe have yet to burn. Mar- 
tyr fires must light up Europe as the stars 
dot the sky. Savonarola must preach and 
perish. Many brave, loyal hearts must 
faint and fail, until sturdy Martin can 
come. But he will come. Standing firm 
at Wittenberg’s door, he will knock, knock, 
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knock, until the Papacy, like Macbeth, 
hearing and knowing the summons, shall 
turn pallid face to Hecate’s altar and 
hoarsely whisper, “What hands are here? 
Ha! They pluck out mine eyes!” 

Back to his cell in St. Mary of the 
Angels creeps the son of the cloth-seller to 
die. It is the year of his Lord 1226. Francis 
is forty-five. The Brothers bear him to 
Sister Clare. She kisses him. It is their 
last sacrament together. Around the straw- 
thatched hut skylarks begin to fly. Some 
one has told them that their big brother 
is headed for home. To the spot they 
hurry. The Brothers of the Order seek 
tenderly to minister. Vain the thought. 
Stand aside, Brothers. Angels are not 
needed here now — only larks, skylarks. See 
how they come, how they wheel, mounting 
ever upward, singing. Still they circle up- 
ward until they are lost in the blue; but 
still they can be heard singing. 

On a mountainside they buried him. 
Every evening, just before he goes down be- 
hind Umbrian steeps, Brother Sun looks in 
for a moment. Over tessellated pavement, 
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around the tomb, drift primrose lights and 
filmy, iridescent shadows. Overhead smile 
angel faces. Clare is not far away. In her 
niche, lined with precious marbles, the 
Little Sister sleeps. She is smiling. Love 
has a long memory. Worshipers, with 
hungry hearts, come and kneel around 
them both and pray, “II Santo! II Santo! 
The Saint!” But we are wiser. We see no 
dead Saint. Our hearts are lifted to a living 
Troubadour. We rejoice in a prophet who 
revealed the secret of the Lord and His 
mystery — that secret that we must die to 
live, and the mystery of Love’s incarnation. 

The dream that this barefoot beggar 
and herald of God did dream has not faded. 
No. It flashes its glory and its warning 
athwart our skies and into our hearts. 
Poor men, madmen, adventurers like Fran- 
cesco Bernardone, are what this day needs 
— this day with its frenzied militarism, its 
lust for success and gold, its “worship of 
fine houses and big lands and high office and 
grand social functions.” The Angel again 
stands in the sun, holding out the cup. 
“Give me men,” he says, “give me men — 
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men who will drink the draught divine. 
Master, King of hearts, give me men!” 

They who harken put their hands be- 
tween the hands of the King. With Him 
they drink the cup. Then to the task they 
go forth. While it is yet night they sing 
with the larks, because they are His her- 
alds of the Dawn. They wear the humble 
garb and work the works of obscurity, be- 
cause in them the Life of the Spirit has right 
of way. At defeats in this world they laugh, 
because they are linked with the Love 
which moves the sun and the other stars. 
On the cross they sing, because they have 
helped to lift this world back, up, up to 
where the Lord Christ, without stooping, 
can reach it to kiss it, — they sing, they sing 
Francesco Bernardone’s Canticle of the Sun : 
“Praised be Thou, Lord, for all Thy 
creatures, but especially for my Brother, 
the Sun, who images Thy light and glory. 
Praised be Thou, Lord, for Brother Fire, 
and the Moon, and the Clouds, for the 
song of birds and the fragrance of flowers, 
as on the slant hillside they court the war- 
riors of the Sun. Praised be Thou, Lord, 
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for the joy of dawn, for the hush of even- 
tide. Praised be Thou, Lord, for Ocean’s 
waves with their white flecks of driven 
foam; for mysterious silences; for the wide- 
ness of the firmament with my Little Sis- 
ters, the Stars. Praised be Thou, Lord, for 
Brother Death ; even he whispers Thy secret 
of Life and Love!” 


168 


CHAPTER III. 


THE SWORD OF DAIMIO KURODA. 

In Japan the writer became the owner of a 
sword. The weapon is a tsurugi , or two- 
handed sword of the Samurai. The steel 
is fair to look upon. It has the old Nip- 
ponese tempering, one of the lost arts. 
The blade itself is historic. In Yeddo, now 
Tokio, about three hundred and thirty 
years ago, a youth named Kuroda by great 
effort had gained a bag of silver. The 
young man was of Samurai blood, but he 
was friendless. This silver, the reward of 
the toil of years, was his all. The precious 
treasure was laid at the feet of Moromichi, 
one of the most celebrated sword-makers 
of the time. The master was besought to 
forge a sword. The tsurugi was made. It 
was tempered not only on anvil, but also 
with sacred, mystic rites. Grasping this 
steel the youth went out to front the 
world. By military-knight-ways, as the 
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phrase goes, he would prove his spirit of 
Bushido. 

Bushido, say those versed in Japanese 
lore, means the code of ethical principles 
which the Samurai knights who bore the 
two-handed swords were sworn to observe. 
“Chivalry,” said the Samurai, “is the 
poetry of life.” Thus Kuroda found it. He 
made for himself high place. He attained 
to the rule of a province. He became 
Daimio, or Prince of Chikuzen. In the 
books of the chronicles of Nippon a shining 
name is that of the famous fighting man, 
Daimio Kuroda. When other Daimios 
boasted of their high ancestry and long de- 
scent, Kuroda, it is said, answered that he 
came from God. So it may not be thought 
strange that, whenever there is taken in 
hand the trusted blade of Daimio Kuroda, 
it seems to speak, to recite strange experi- 
ences, to lift the challenge of Bushido. 
Concerning Bushido one may read much 
to-day. The diary of a young Japanese 
soldier who helped to take Port Arthur is 
entitled “Human Bullets.” The book is 
well named. It is Bushido in modern dress. 

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Other recent illustrations of the Bushido 
spirit are the dramatic offer by Admiral 
Togo of a harikiri knife to his fleet captains 
on the eve of the battle of the Sea of Japan, 
and the death of General Nogi, in order 
that as loyal retainer he might accompany 
his Emperor even beyond the grave. A 
less exploited, but no less notable, illustra- 
tion of Bushido was the conduct of a young 
infantryman who, in death, had planted the 
sunrise flag of the Mikado on a “red ram- 
part’s slippery swell,” in one of the critical 
conflicts in Manchuria. In the kit-bag of 
the dead man they found on a scrap of 
paper, written in his own blood, these 
words : 

“ Since long ago 

My life has been dedicated to my Mikado, 
O, the joy of this day 

When I can give it at last.” 

The scene of the burial of the ashes of the 
young soldier, far from the home of his 
childhood, was pathetic and yet thrilling. 
Clothed in white, the mourners were bear- 
ing incense-burners. The smoke curled 
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heavily, in blue, broken wisps, upward. 
Weird sounded the strains of the Kimegayo, 
or Mikado’s hymn. Silent stood the on- 
lookers. As, mindful of the story, they 
gazed, scenes of battle-shout and tumult 
faded from the hearts of the beholders. 
To their minds came no thought of red 
rampart where in patriotic fury charged 
battalions, audacious and terrible. Above 
pathetic dead no longer did a bit of soiled 
bunting challenge the sun. To one heart 
from the far West, that day, the smoke 
from the bronze censers, as it slowly as- 
cended, appeared to frame in another pic- 
ture. Above the bowed heads of the mourn- 
ers that other picture seemed to shine with 
a light that was both joyous and fadeless. 
Among the foothills of Fujiyama gleamed 
the home of the soldier. Behind it against 
the black sky rose, majestic, ethereal, Fuji- 
yama. There was heard the cannon-shot 
summoning the warrior to the colors. Then, 
just as it is pictured in “Human Bullets,” 
the youth starts from slumber. He takes 
the sacrificial bath. He dons his best uni- 
form. He bows down before the ancestral 
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altar. As he prays there gather around him 
figures from other generations. Dim, shad- 
owy, and yet real, in solemn injunction 
they remind him, “Thou art not thine own. 
For his majesty’s sake thou shalt go to 
save the nation from calamity. Disgrace 
not thine ancestors by any act of coward- 
ice.” Now the family and relatives are 
seen bidding the young soldier farewell. 
And while all ceremoniously observe, he 
takes from the hands of his mother the 
mizu-saka-zuki , the farewell “water- wine- 
cup.” It is a symbol of purification for the 
errand to which he is vowing his life. It is 
the death cup of long separation. As the 
final rite in this death-dedication, the young 
samurai, with religious reverence, takes 
from the family shrine the ancestral sword. 
Pressing to his heart this sacred blade, he 
leaves his home with light heart and light 
feet, expecting to cross its threshold no 
more. 

Japan to-day is a world-power. But it 
is not the boasted western awakening of the 
land that has wrought this miracle of the 
nations. No. Bushido has made Japan. 

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All other influences have been secondary and 
subsidiary. The Bushido sword of Kuroda, 
therefore, bears a peace message, for its 
challenge is an affair of the soul. The lesson 
from this sword of the samurai prince, how- 
ever, comprehends more even than this. It 
involves an unexpected interpretation of 
life as the modern world has been accus- 
tomed to understand life. The Puritan held 
that life is a probation. We of the present 
maintain that human existence is a pilgrim- 
age of the spirit developing character. But 
the conception of mortal being that is held 
by the sons of Bushido is still different from 
both of these western ideas. Life, they say, 
is a high and holy errand for the Son of 
Heaven. This errand is the share which we 
are to bear in the eternal betterment of 
things. Life fulfills its end only when it is 
death-dedicated to some heaven-given task 
which seems to be beyond earthly achieve- 
ment because in its essence it is divine. 

To the present practical, materially sat - 
isfied minds and spirits of men such an atti- 
tude of soul partakes of that which is un- 
balanced. The well-nigh universal verdict 
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of the western world was that General Nogi 
was insane when he committed suicide. 
But such view overlooks the fact that for 
centuries the rite of harakiri in the mind of 
the samurai has been deemed a sacred priv- 
ilege inhering in his noble birth and blood. 
In supreme crises of the human spirit the 
employment of this holy recourse against 
the outrageous flings of fortune has been re- 
garded not only as distinctly sane and ra- 
tional, but also as proving a lofty elevation 
of spirit that triumphs over all things gross 
and mean. In other words, it is the red 
badge of courage, the glorious, immortal 
mark of the Samurai spirit. And only the 
other day so intense a modern as G. K. 
Chesterton was quoting approvingly the 
sage remark of Dr. Samuel Johnson that 
while, strictly speaking, physical courage is 
not a Christian virtue, yet a Christian man 
should cultivate it; “for he who has lost that 
virtue can never be certain of preserving 
any other.” 

On the plains of Manchuria sons of 
Bushido found no foe too strong for them, 
because they were death-dedicated to do 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 


there an errand for Heaven, whose Son, 
after their symbolical way of thinking, is 
their Mikado. A few wire entanglements, 
machine guns and woola-woolas of Russian 
moujiks — what were they to Samurai clans- 
men who had drunk the water-wine-cup of 
death and long separation? The idealist 
always is your dangerous man. The only 
abiding reality, so far as this earth is con- 
cerned, is an idea. Young men who dream 
dreams, enthusiasts wrapped in memories, 
passionate pilgrims constrained by a divine 
obsession — these are the souls who hurl 
tyrants to the dust and give humanity its 
battle-cries. 

Mohammed understood this, and they 
called him Prophet. Into his religion he 
fused a death-dedication to his own pre- 
cepts. The faithful Mussulman, therefore, 
is immune to the terrors of earth. Like 
Abraham, he sees afar off. The truth is 
that in this world more things than we 
dream of are wrought, not only by prayer, 
but also by visionaries and seeming mad- 
men. Thorwaldsen, in his statue of Schiller, 
makes the head of the poet bent, because 
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Schiller never rises above earthly things. 
But a contemporary of Schiller, one whom 
Schiller never quite understood — John Gott- 
lieb Fichte — Fichte, the dreamer, was al- 
ways looking upward. The story is told of 
this dreamer that while at work in his at- 
tic one day at the University of Jena, to 
him hurried his landlady, exclaiming, “ Come 
down and see the great Emperor Napoleon 
passing through the town.” “Go away,” 
answered Fichte, “leave me alone.” “O 
but it is the opportunity of a lifetime,” 
said the eager woman. “Come see this 
great phenomenon! With his guards just 
now he is passing through our street.” 
“Go away,” said Fichte. “Leave me alone. 
I, too, am a phenomenon!” The philoso- 
pher was meditating on his “Reden an die 
Deutsche Nation,” which was to rouse the 
Fatherland to a passion of patriotism that 
should dash in pieces like a potter’s vessel 
Napoleon Bonaparte and all his legions. 
The young man in the attic was busied 
over bigger things even than the empire of 
Napoleon. For Fichte also was dreaming 
out his system of idealism that was to help 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 


change the whole course of human think- 
ing and doing. 

Kings and Fields of the Cloth of Gold 
may bulk big in the world chronicles. But, 
after all, the world gets on only through the 
tasks of the hidden idealists — men and 
women, poor often, and utterly obscure, but 
quickened souls whose lives are faithful er- 
rands for the Great King. In some hidden 
place, against all odds, they burn out and 
obliterate themselves in divine accomplish- 
ment. Oliver Cromwell did not make Eng- 
land to flame like the sun at the heart of 
the seventeenth century. No. The Puritan 
people, whose mouthpiece he was, did that. 
The makers of Methodism have not been 
the bishops, or the so-called leaders of 
Methodism. No. The true makers of 
Methodism have been the nameless circuit 
rider, or pioneer preacher, and his dauntless 
wife. The greatest hero of the Civil War 
was not Grant, nor Sherman, nor Sheridan. 
No. He was the private soldier, the lonely 
Federal picket, or, from the Southern view- 
point, the starved Confederate enlisted 
man, unnoted martyr to the Lost Cause. 

178 


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Who, for example, lighted the first fire, 
or built the first house among men? Who 
invented the compass, glass, cloth? Guten- 
berg did not invent printing. The Cretans 
had movable wooden blocks for printing 
three thousand years before Johannes Gu- 
tenberg. Who discovered quinine, the first 
loaf of bread, the first cup of coffee? Who 
first set sail craft on the sea? Who invented 
the wheel? Who thought out the telephone 
or the telescope? To whom is due the elec- 
tric theory of matter or the doctrine of the 
conservation of energy? Concerning nearly 
every such discovering Prometheus history 
is silent. The truth is that the real “firsts” 
in such matters “are our human predeces- 
sors. It is on their thought, toil, and vi- 
carious sufferings that even our most splen- 
did individual achievements have been built 
up.” Their work is none the less gracious 
to humanity because they are nameless. 
They are like those Christian builders of the 
basilica which became afterward the Mosque 
of St. Sofia in the conquered city of Con- 
stantinople. The workmen who mixed the 
mortar for the foundations of the basilica 
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put therein musk. The fragrance of that 
musk remains to this day. The perfume of 
the Christian musk sweetens the incanta- 
tions of Islam. Invisibly and indescribably 
it reminds men of the true worship that yet 
again shall fill the temple with incensed 
glory. 

Who shall say how much Ruget de Lisle 
had to do with the triumphs of the First 
French Republic? WTio was Ruget de 
Lisle? 0, he was just a man who wrote a 
song. That was all. But when this man 
who had written a song came to die, the 
people of the village where he was dying 
gathered under his window, so runs the 
story, and began to sing. And as they sang, 
the strains of that song floated softly up to 
that chamber, and then they seemed to 
widen and deepen and to float away, away 
to Paris, and then over France and out over 
Europe. And then, caught on the wings of 
the wind, that song seemed to fling around 
the world its weird, lyric cry. And wher- 
ever that music came, people started up 
as out of slumber, poor people, sad, heart- 
broken folk. And then thrones toppled and 
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kingdoms fell. At those fiery notes mon- 
archs and queens were led to the scaffold, 
or vanished like ghosts at cock-crow. Ar- 
mies marched, cities burned, nations rocked. 
And yet he was only an old man dying with 
his face to the wall — this Ruget de Lisle, 
who wrote the Marsellaise. 

“These centennial Yankees,” who have 
grown “so all-fired tall,” can afford to re- 
flect occasionally on the other side even of 
their own glorious Revolutionary story. 
This other side was suggested pathetically 
by that young woman from Nottingham- 
shire, England, who a few years ago visited 
Concord, Massachusetts, and stating that 
she belonged to the family of one of the 
British soldiers slain at the Concord fight, 
sought out the graves beside the Bridge. 
Reverently the young woman placed a 
wreath on the graves. Then, kneeling 
down, she sang in plaintive, halting voice, 
“God Save the Queen.” At this far day 
none need hesitate to ask what it was that 
led those British soldiers at Concord and at 
Bunker Hill to march so boldly to the place 
of death, enduring reproach as instruments 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 


of tyranny. They were young men, loving 
liberty and civil rights. They believed in 
righteousness and were full of the joy of 
living. They had homes, sweethearts, moth- 
ers. Their foemen were of their own race 
and blood. And yet these British men did 
this thing, and they did it heroically. Why 
was it? May it not have been because of 
their British spirit of Bushido — that clan- 
loyalty of Great Britain, now a thousand 
years old, that venerates obedience to God 
and the King as the sacred symbol of na- 
tional unity? One who sees large will not 
visit Bunker Hill or Concord Bridge with- 
out one gentle thought for the lads who 
there, in the long ago, mindful of old Eng- 
land, paid the last full measure of their de- 
votion to her and won the unforgetting 
memory of Lincolnshire and Nottingham- 
shire, at least, with their love and their 
roses. 

But now this conception of life, as an 
errand for the King, a definite errand which 
always is a goodly errand and fair — this 
idea is not such an outlandish importation 
from beyond the Seven Seas as we may im- 
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agine. It is not even peculiar to Bushido. 
The great life-masters realize that the world 
of the spirit thus sends each one of us on 
an errand. And so every immortal tragedy 
in literature simply is an attempt to set 
forth this experience of the soul as it runs 
blithely on its errand or plays truant. 

But life itself surpasses every effort of 
the imagination. The Greek tragedy of 
Agamemnon, for example, is a wonderful 
picture of a blameless and mighty king, who, 
on returning from his wars, is murdered by 
his evil queen, Clytemnestra. But this 
tragedy itself, however fairly written, does 
not make the impression that is made by 
the tombs of this king and queen, as you 
see them to-day, side by side, in Greek 
Mycenae. After three thousand years the 
tomb of Agamemnon is intact — a vast 
hill-cloaked, bee-hived sepulcher, with not 
one stone missing. But at its side mark the 
tomb of the guilty queen. There it lies in 
hopeless ruin, as if the lightning of the gods 
themselves had shattered it. 

Shakespeare gives immortal setting forth 
of men and women who trifle with the 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 


vision of life as dedicated to definite celes- 
tial purposes. But the Bible does more. 
The Bible, not only like Shakespeare, in- 
sists upon the tragic failure of life’s runa- 
ways. But the Bible also makes clear how 
a soul that does its errand blithely creates 
around itself an atmosphere from which 
others draw life-quickening. 

If we were seeking for some classic illus- 
tration, we might point perhaps to Peter 
Schamyl, the Circassian chieftain. Here 
was a poor youth in a Caucasus village who 
saw the tyrant Russians sweeping over his 
native mountains. He would save his 
country and his people from such bondage. 
In the name of liberty and of God, he 
drank the water-wine-cup of self-dedication 
against the tyrant. He gathered around 
him peasants of the mountains. He flung 
himself upon Russia. He and his comrades 
were left for dead upon the field. Russia 
pushed on. But Schamyl arose seemingly 
from the dead. Again he gathered about 
him men who were death-dedicated like 
himself. Again they flung themselves upon 
the Slav. This time they made way for 
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liberty. They redeemed the Caucasus. 
For fifty years Peter Schamyl, Circassian 
chieftain, but also prophet of God, held 
back Russia from her march toward the 
East through the Caucasus Gate. To-day, 
when the procession of the Holy Carpet 
enters the gate of Mecca, amid the plaudits 
of multitudes and the clash of cymbals, the 
pilgrims pause beside a white tomb not far 
from the black Kaaba, while the Ulemas 
chant, “Great is Allah! and Peter Schamyl, 
His Second Prophet.” 

But we do not need to go so far afield. 
Illustrations of this great truth of life lie 
close at hand. In our own history we often 
mark how a soul that has been death-dedi- 
cated to high errand creates around itself 
a magnetic sphere of inspiration. Angels 
must smile as they hear us to-day call over 
with laudation and glorification the list of 
Boston’s illustrious names — Sir Henry Vane, 
sent to the block; Mary Dyer, hung on 
Boston Common; Anne Hutchinson, driven 
out under sentence of death; Roger Wil- 
liams, shamed and exiled; Sam Adams and 
John Adams, whom good society at the 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 


moment could not quite remember; Charles 
Sumner, insulted by the lowered blinds of 
Beacon Street, as well-nigh dead he was 
brought home; Ralph Waldo Emerson, for 
thirty years not deemed fit to address Har- 
vard College, his alma mater; Wendell 
Phillips, who, as he wiped the ancient eggs 
from his face when mobbed in Cincinnati, 
exclaimed, “You make me feel perfectly at 
home, as if I were back in old Boston.” 
Yes, the Everetts and Websters, the Choates 
and Winthrops were there — Tyrian workers 
in pomegranates, chain-work, checker-work 
and lilies. But the saints, the death-ded- 
icated before whose face marched the flam- 
ing sword and around whose shrines stand 
angels of the larger hope, when in their 
passionate pilgrimage did they experience 
pomegranates, checker-work, or lilies? 

The spiritual history of Boston illus- 
trates curiously the paradox that they who 
most obediently run on errands for the 
King most frequently are regarded with sus- 
picion by those who are the pillars of so- 
ciety in their day. Charles L. Sprague tells 
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how, from his window near the corner of 
Washington and State Streets, he saw three 
scenes in succession which were the epitome 
of the degradation of Boston, and yet the 
glory of her history. First, he saw dragged 
past that corner by a mob of Boston gen- 
tlemen William Lloyd Garrison, with a 
hangman’s rope around him. Then he saw 
a black man, J. Anthony Burns, being car- 
ried by the United States troops back into 
slavery. Then, again past that same cor- 
ner, he saw a regiment of colored soldiers 
marching away to war against slavery, sing- 
ing as they marched, “John Brown’s body 
lies a-moldering in the grave.” 

Had Charles L. Sprague looked once 
more from his window, he would have seen 
and heard another regiment marching, this 
time a white regiment, made up of the 
flower of the youth of the city, led by the 
son of Daniel Webster. They were march- 
ing for liberty and union and God. And as 
they went, their footsteps were keeping 
time to a strange, new song, a terrible Mar- 
sellaise of the Son of Heaven — 

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THE CUP OF FIRE. 


“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of 
the Lord: 

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes 
of wrath are stored: 

He has loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible 
swift sword: 

His truth is marching on.” 

Often, in memory, there comes back to 
the writer an hour when, as a little boy, he 
stood beside a dead man and, with an awe 
that he could not understand, looked won- 
deringly at the cold, marble-like face. All 
around were soldiers and people. The 
people all eagerly were pressing forward to 
look at the face. Every avenue leading up 
to the State House where the scene trans- 
pired was crowded with other people, people 
whom the childish imagination multiplied 
until it seemed as if the whole city, state, 
and nation surely must be there. And 
these, too, all were pressing forward to gaze 
on the face. How still they all were. There 
was not a sound, until behind was heard a 
sob and then a stifled whisper, 4 ‘Charles 
Sumner.” Turning around, the boy saw 
a black man. This black man in vain was 
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THE WATER- WINE-CUP. 

trying to suppress his emotions as he bent 
forward to see the countenance of his 
friend. That weeping freedman beside the 
coffin of Charles Sumner, successor to 
Daniel Webster, was the representative of 
a new epoch. Other figures, not weeping 
nor yet dim and ghostly, though they all 
long since have passed into the unseen, rise 
at the sound of the name of Charles Sumner 
to take their stand beside that freedman. 
Like the shining knights whom tradition 
fancies forever around the sleeping Barba- 
rossa in his enchanted cave, these stand. 
And around and above these also tower the 
eternal, snow-crowned mountains. Not 
long after his experience beside the bier of 
Charles Sumner the same small boy heard 
Wendell Phillips make a famous public de- 
liverance. In that deliverance there was a 
thrilling reference to the early abolition 
days. As the boy listened to that golden flood 
of elevated eloquence, so simple and yet so 
convincing, so wide- visioned; as he marked 
the quiet demeanor, more impressive than 
any dramatic display, he realized, mere 
child as he was, that here was a man whose 
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like he probably never would see. The face 
of the man as he spoke ever so quietly 
seemed to shine as if it were lighted by an 
inner lamp. No. Another such death- 
dedicated soul never would live in the lis- 
tener’s generation. The crisis that had un- 
sheathed that samurai blade was passed. 
The era itself was ending. But it was an 
era in which the civilization of America had 
changed front. If to those who opposed 
him the sword of this man seemed over- 
sharp, it was perhaps because the sword 
itself had been bathed in heaven. It was 
like that Russian sword of romantic story 
which, in the steel, had inlaid with silver 
the inscription, “God help me to overcome 
my enemies in the mountains and on the 
steppes.” 

It is this other-worldly power of the two- 
handed swordsman that makes it seem so 
natural that the sign of Bushido should be 
the cherry blossom. For, at bottom, Bush- 
ido is a mingling of expert swordsmanship 
with a life philosophy which is both radiant 
and profound. And it is not a bad idea to 
have expert swordsmanship mingled with 
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your idealism. It is needed sometimes. 
But the double cherry blossom is a flower 
so delicate and impractical that sensuous 
fruitage is sacrificed to the production of 
ethereal bloom. And so the spirit thus 
symbolized is willing to live and to toil, 
even if it can bless mankind only with its 
perfume and memory long after it is blown 
to the four winds. 

John Wesley understood all this. Once, 
near Burslem, Wesley reined in his old 
horse, Timothy, to see a flower-bed in front 
of a house. Such a sight reached hidden 
depths. For Wesley made note of it in his 
diary and wrote, “His name is Josiah 
Wedgwood. He is small and lame, but he 
has a flower garden, and his soul is near to 
God.” 

Our supreme need is, first, a flower-in- 
spired idealism transcending earthly things, 
and then a death-dedicated courage to ap- 
ply that idealism to the problems of life. 
Never as to-day in the history of the world 
has there been such need of standards set 
forth and interpreted in idealistic spiritual 
terms. Rudolph Eucken maintains that 
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the very complexity of our life now is bring- 
ing about an increasing dissatisfaction with 
modern civilization, and is driving men to 
religion. There is a demand in the soul for 
an inner uplift of human nature, for a new 
idealism. And this demand necessarily 
must seek its alliance with religion. But is 
not this the very heart of what we have 
been trying to say? If it is true that Amer- 
ica has lost her vision because of her riches, 
and that our sons and our daughters no 
longer prophesy because they are sensuous, 
this challenge of Bushido which has trans- 
formed Japan and has lifted her to a gleam- 
ing place among the nations — this challenge 
is the very message that we need. For 
fronting a soft, sensual, ease-loving, materi- 
alistic, cynical, money-mad world, it says, 
“Out of my poverty have I done this.” 

If human bullets, to borrow the Sam- 
urai phrase, thus are aimed high enough, 
they will pass over the dark and possess to- 
morrow. It seems folly to forsake house 
and lands for an idea. When already you 
are lord of the manor, it is madness to at- 
tempt the adventure whose dice are loaded 
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with disaster. But thus alone it is that 
Progress mounts — by far-visioned Sacrifice. 

It was folly for the Samurai son of 
Bushido deliberately to set himself apart 
for destruction on the plains of Manchuria. 
Yes, folly. But the smoke of the burning 
body of the Samurai on the spot where he 
fell was the holy incense consecrating a new 
Japan. 

It was folly for Sir Henry Vane to de- 
fend such fanatical ranters as Anne Hutchin- 
son and Mary Dyer, and, in defense of what 
he called Human Rights, to lay his own neck 
on the block. But the generations march- 
ing forward have laid a sword above the 
head of Harry Vane, saying, 44 He, too, was 
a soldier in the war for the liberation of 
humanity.” 

It was folly for the Puritan to imagine 
that a Marston Moor or two could unshackle 
England. Oliver Cromwell, himself torn 
from his grave and thrown to the scavengers, 
was to witness to the futility of such no- 
tion. But the dreams that the Puritan 
dreamed for England can not be cast out. 
In them there was heaven and hell and di- 
193 


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THE CUP OF FIRE. 


vine calling. The empty grave of Oliver 
Cromwell in Westminster Abbey is, there- 
fore, the most impressive thing in England. 
For intrenched privilege and reckless hered- 
itary power it holds a warning that well 
may be heeded. 

It was folly for the British soldier at 
Concord Bridge and Bunker Hill to strive 
against the clear destiny of America. But 
the loss of the colonies stirred British pluck 
to take heart for wider efforts. And Eng- 
land became the instrument of the Al- 
mighty for policing the Seven Seas and the 
Far East. 

It was folly for the Frenchman to die at 
Waterloo for an empire of which the exist- 
ence lay in the will of a single selfish ad- 
venturer. But the broken protest of Water- 
loo, fought to the music of the Marsellaise, 
held in it the assurance of a new, democratic 
reign of the people. 

It was folly for Charles Sumner and 
Wendell Phillips to forsake the traditions 
and the refined associations of a lifetime 
for a Quixotic theory concerning the Negro. 

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THE WATER-WINE-CUP. 


But in their enterprise was launched the 
new humanity. 

It was folly for Jonathan Dolliver to 
seek to preserve in manhood the idealism of 
his poverty-stricken boyhood. His Alad- 
din’s lamp went out. But in his footsteps 
are coming others who follow his light. And 
there is emerging a better, nobler America, 
a new spiritual America, destined to become 
the center of a new civilization and called 
to be the savior of the nations. 

The ability thus in spirit and in action 
to pass over the dark and possess the to- 
morrow is the great practical working prin- 
ciple of life. This is what brings life to its 
flower. Through this principle the loyal 
soul is linked with the seers and captains 
of all the ages. Above the tumult such soul 
has assurance immortal. It shares the 
vision of the supreme idealist, the King 
whose city of defeat and shame has become 
the shrine of humanity. 

In Jerusalem, whose Church of the Holy 
Sepulcher houses the world’s heart, they 
will show you the sword of Godfrey de 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 

Bouillon. In dauntless red fight against the 
infidel, the great crusader, death-dedicated 
to his Lord, bore this weapon. With cross- 
like hilt the crusader’s steel conjures the 
imagination through many a thrilling ex- 
perience around the gray city. But that 
sword of Godfrey de Bouillon is only a sym- 
bol in another age of the perennial conquest 
which the other-worldly soul achieves in 
this realm of fleeting interests. Nor is its 
victory withheld from humblest soul that 
has caught sight of the promise. Just be- 
yond the shrine in which is kept the brand 
of the crusader an old Oriental was seen 
one day standing facing the sepulcher of 
Jesus. Somewhere from out the East he 
had come, a long and weary way. The 
dream of his life, without doubt, had been 
that some day thus at the last he might 
stand before the sepulcher of his Lord. 
Across wastes and burning deserts, in hard- 
ship, thirst, and hunger, the wanderer had 
kept his dream until now he was come to 
the holy place. With closed eyes and face 
uplifted the pilgrim was standing, silent, 
his arms outstretched in mute memory of 
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THE WATER-WINE-CUP. 


the cross. The man’s tears wet the pave- 
ment at his feet. Ever and anon, on his 
knees, with his scarf the old peasant would 
dry the stone floor. Then again he would 
stand silent, with arms extended, the tears 
coursing down his cheeks. 

What to him meant the hours, or the 
days, or life’s hardships, victories, or de- 
feats? His very being had slipped across 
the portal to things invisible and immortal. 
The glow of the dome above his head had 
changed to purple. Still he stood until the 
companies of priests, for nightly worship, 
had begun to march and countermarch, 
with their chants and flickering candles. 
Here and there one could mark the moving, 
winding procession, Greeks leading off, fol- 
lowed by Copts, Armenians, Abyssinians, 
Syrians, Latins, what-not — each group of 
celebrants intoning its own rhythmic 
worship. 

Oblivious to all stood the pilgrim. With 
tear-wet, closed eyes uplifted, as if through 
the deepening shadows, there on Calvary 
above the tomb, he could see a face and 
hear a voice — “But after that tribulation 
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shall they see the Son of man coming in 
clouds with great power and glory.” 

Pathetic death - dedicated devotion, 
tragic now but triumphant in the darkness, 
as from somewhere off in the subterranean 
recesses of the vast and silent temple there 
floated up the muffled singing of the priests, 
the stubborn Greeks still hoarsely leading — 
“Kyrie, Kyrie, Eleison, Lord of Thy gra- 
cious might, have mercy to accept my life, 
Kyrie, Kyrie, Eleison.” 


198 


CHAPTER IV. 


SWEET FIRE FOR MODERN 
DESPAIR. 

In “Love’s Labor Lost,” Biron, in melo- 
dious numbers, tells of the “music and 
sweet fire” which love pours into his de- 
spairing heart. In the cup which celestial 
love holds forth there is music and sweet 
fire for every heart, however evil its condi- 
tions or dark the despair. In discussing 
modern social conditions, it seems to be the 
accepted attitude to paint the picture in 
realistic blackness. Doctrinaire exploiters 
and prophets have little difficulty in making 
out a clear case of social delinquency and sin 
in repellant proportions. We accept it all. 
We do not question it. The actual condi- 
tions are bad enough in all conscience. Nor 
do we need to take the well-worn path to 
submerged London to find much broken 
human earthenware. In American life are 
enthroned luxurious success, money mad- 
ness, cynical materialism, penury of char- 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 


acter — eternal emblems of the golden calf. 
Epicureanism, we are told, laughs at the 
stains and wounds of the body politic; 
learning is blasting at the Rock of Ages ; our 
golden age of culture is threatening to be- 
come a bituminous age of vice. 

While all this may be true, is it not a 
fact that the world to-day is better off than 
it ever has been? Is not humanity steadily 
growing wiser, purer, nobler? Something is 
bringing “music and sweet fire” to this 
human despair. W r hat is it? The most 
casual student of the time will agree that 
it is the love that is centered in the Son of 
God; it is the passion that is poured forth 
for others out of God-filled lives — this to-day 
is the power that is making men free. This 
is the might that is shoring back the con- 
tracting walls of society. This is the 
heavenly dynamic which is transforming in- 
dividuals and thrilling through Churches, 
societies, and institutions for human good. 
Celestial, cleansing fire, this is burning 
through the miasma of social despair. This 
is flashing the death-damp of the world into 
something fair. It is taking the very ele- 
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THE WATER-WINE-CUP. 


merits of our Philistinism and transmuting 
them into idealism, piety, and all else that 
makes for social uplift. 

But is there an equal agreement or un- 
derstanding as to the extraordinary part 
which woman is taking in this modern 
social redemption? The growing desire of 
women to share in the privileges and duties 
of citizenship is recognized as giving a 
distinct color and trend to the time. The 
increasing participation of women in all the 
vital interests of modern life is accounted 
by not a few as one of the glories of the 
present civilization. But, assuming that 
there is recognized the growing share which 
woman is taking in the eleemosynary works 
of social and religious redemption, is the 
profound significance for social regenera- 
tion which this fact involves being given 
sufficient attention? Few realize how im- 
portant a place woman held in the work and 
organization of early Christianity. Still 
fewer know how large a part she played in 
winning the heart of pagan womanhood in 
that decadent and despairing age. It was 
largely because of the music and sweet fire 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 

of woman’s love celestialized that then, in- 
deed, 

“The Word had breath and wrought 

With human hands the creed of creeds, 

In loveliness of perfect deeds 
More strong than all poetic thought.” 

The definite form in which this redemp- 
tive power of a consecrated womanhood was 
brought to bear was through an order or 
association of women which now familiarly 
is known as the Order of Deaconesses. That 
is past history. But the interesting thing 
about deaconesses is the fact that, in the 
present methods of social work, there is a 
growing conviction that the music and 
sweet fire of womanly influence is abso- 
lutely the most potent instrument now at 
hand. When everything else fails to bring 
results, this influence gently burns all bar- 
riers away. If the Church, therefore, is to 
succeed in its social propaganda it must de- 
pend increasingly upon just such work as 
can be done only by consecrated women. 
These present words are written from the 
conviction that such work needs to be re- 
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stated and properly set forth with historic 
accuracy and intelligent spiritual interpre- 
tation. The large hopes from the present 
social service efforts will not materialize, we 
fear, until social workers are won to an en- 
thusiastic and far-reaching utilization of just 
such work by women as was inaugurated by 
the Early Church. The resources of the 
Church, indeed, will not have been con- 
served to humanity until the heart of hu- 
manity has been wooed as it was in the days 
of the early deaconesses. That wooing, 
which briefly we shall attempt to outline, 
must be adapted to modern conditions and 
urged to its logical and divine end. Woman 
is ascending the throne to which she was 
born. Her power steadily is waxing. As 
we study the present movements that make 
for righteousness, nowhere do we find one 
that is superior to the working appeal that 
is consecrated by the music and sweet fire 
of woman’s love. Indeed, we need not hes- 
itate to put to those who are versed in the 
history of morals this definite question. In 
turning the potency of love into the channel 
of life, what human agencies, if any, pos- 
203 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


sess more magic than does the order of 
deaconesses? The most characteristic con- 
tribution of Methodism toward the redemp- 
tion of humanity may yet be found to be 
in her reorganization of this gentle order 
of the virgins of God. 

Reorganization, I say. Some people im- 
agine that the deaconess idea is something 
new; or, if they do not hold the deaconess 
work to be entirely novel, they think that 
it is at least the outgrowth of the Mildmay 
experiment at Barnet, England, in 1860. If 
learned in such matters, they may explain 
the present deaconess movement as simply 
Pastor Fliedner’s institution at Kaisers- 
werth transplanted. Few deem the order 
of deaconesses to be anything bearing a 
special seal of the primitive Church. In 
reality, this order of deaconesses, which al- 
ready has entered into the very being of 
Methodism, is apostolic, peculiarly and dis- 
tinctively. The deaconess order began with 
the beginnings of the Church. Nay, in 
making possible the Church this order 
played no small part. During those first 
perilous hours of her blusterous birth and 
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THE WATER-WINE-CUP. 


chiding nativity the bride of Christ was 
nourished and sweetened by the self-aban- 
doning diaconate of her holy women. Her 
very existence may have hung on the de- 
votion of that sacred band. No institution 
of Christianity now existing savors so inti- 
mately of the early Church as does this 
unique company of them who give them- 
selves “ without reservation to the service of 
the Lord of the vineyard.” No creation of 
Christianity within its own bosom more 
clearly carries divine authority. In the 
presence of his lady, sings Heine in one of 
his lyrics, a clumsy, ignorant country boor 
became transformed into a refined and 
courteous gentleman. But even in deeper 
things than love 

“The indescribable here is done, 

The woman-soul leadeth us upward and on!” 

If the true seat of faith be in the sphere of 
the intuitional, is not the nature of woman 
richest in that same region? Must we not, 
therefore, recognize woman as the arch- 
priestess of religion? Some one has re- 
minded us that woman “ never has sat at 
20 5 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 

the councils of the Church. She never 
penned a decree. She never has worn the 
triple tiara.” And yet, at every great epoch 
of religious history, behind every great 
teacher there has stood a woman. Last at 
the cross, first at the tomb was Mary. 
Behind Jerome was the Roman matron, 
Paula. Behind Augustine rises his mother, 
Monica. Back of Basil and of Gregory of 
Nyssa was their sister, Macrina. When 
Boniface evangelized the Teutons his best 
workers were Sisters Lioba, Walburga, and 
Berthgytha. With Saint Bernard stood 
Hildegarde. All the world knows Saint 
Clara, Saint Catherine, Saint Theresa, Saint 
Susannah W T esley. The genius of Meth- 
odism takes its cast and color from this 
peculiar relation of woman to religion. 
Read the lives of the early Methodist hero- 
ines and study the present membership of 
the Church to realize this. Methodism has 
moved to her goal utilizing always as a far- 
reaching means of progress this doctrine, 
that woman is the archpriestess of religion. 
This is why, for her pattern of woman’s 
work, Methodism, within our own day, has 
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turned back to the usages of the primitive 
Church. “And many women were there, 
. . . ministering unto him.” 

The first deaconess mentioned in the 
gospel record is Phoebe. “I commend unto 
you Phoebe, our sister, which is a deacon 
[diakonos] of the Church which is at Cen- 
chrese.” Tryphena and Tryphosa were dea- 
conesses, as was Persis the beloved, and 
Priscilla, who, according to a brilliant 
German scholar, may have written the 
Epistle to the Hebrews. From these first 
deaconesses the number grew. Throughout 
the unstained years of early Christianity 
the usefulness and influence of the deaconess 
organization waxed steadily. By the middle 
of the third century there were fifteen hun- 
dred deaconesses in the city of Rome alone. 
At about the same time there were, it is 
said, flourishing deaconess institutions in 
Constantinople and Antioch, from which, as 
from burning hearths, spread holy light and 
inspiration. Even heretics like the Mon- 
tanists, and irregular Churches like that of 
the Nestorians, had their presbyteresses or 
deaconesses. Like the deacons, the first 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 

deaconesses were ordained. They were dis- 
tinguished by a peculiar garb. They came 
from all classes of society. Before her or- 
dination a deaconess of the Western Church, 
Radegund, was the Queen of Neustria. 
Pliny describes the torture, during the Tra- 
jan persecution, of two deaconesses who had 
been maid servants. Among others of their 
order who, as martyrs, were interred in the 
Catacombs are five faithful deaconesses, or 
“virgins of God,” who having made a good 
confession were “well-deserving.” These 
were the matron Octavia; Gaudiosa, hand- 
maid of God; Alexandra, a girl; Aestonia, a 
traveling virgin; and Furia Elpis, a virgo 
devota , or virgin consecrated. At first only 
widows, women of fifty or sixty years of 
age, thus were set apart as ministers of the 
Church. It was a monstrous thing, thought 
Tertullian, when, in his time, a certain 
young virgin was made a deaconess. Such 
feeling might be expected in a saint who has 
left us the outburst, “Woman, thou art the 
gate of hell!” But time gradually changed 
this age rule. The most famous of all the 
early deaconesses was Olympias, a young 
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widow, ordained in her youth because of 
her extraordinary virtue. These holy wo- 
men helped to build and to shape primitive 
Christianity. 

Multiform were their duties. They had 
charge, for example, of the doors of the 
church. Just as the official door-keepers 
stood at the Gate of the Men, so the dea- 
conesses kept the Gate of the Women. 
One of their titles, indeed, was “Keepers of 
the Holy Gates.” The deaconesses also 
regulated the behavior of the women both 
within and without the sanctuary. As gov- 
ernesses of the flock, they brought to the 
deacons or presbyters all women in need of 
the Church sacraments. They assisted in 
the baptism of women. As catechists, or 
teachers, they prepared women for bap- 
tism. As messengers of the Church, they 
carried on a kind of zenana mission to 
women in their own homes. Indeed, they 
were almost the only means that the early 
Church had of private ministry of the Word 
to women. For they alone, without scan- 
dal, could reach the women of that time. 
The deaconesses visited and attended those 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 

who were ill and in distress. They were es- 
pecially successful in their ministry to the 
martyrs, for these tender mourners could 
gain access to the condemned when others 
were denied. In describing the imprison- 
ment of one of the Christian martyrs, a 
Greek poet tells how, in the early gray of 
the morning, one might observe the deacon- 
esses with some of the orphan children wait- 
ing at the prison gate to bring food and com- 
fort to the condemned. Libanius — remem- 
bered for his sneer at the Christians of his 
time, that they were vile artisans who had 
“forsaken their mallets and anvils to preach 
about the things of heaven and one Chris- 
tos, whom they called the Son of God” — 
Libanius says that whenever there was any 
martyr condemned in his city there always 
could be seen the old mother of the deacon- 
esses running about begging and taking up 
a collection for the man who was about to 
die. During the Valerian persecution the 
plague broke out in the city of Alexandria. 
The pagan population, in their panic for 
fear of death, forsook their own flesh. They 
left their sick unattended and their dead 
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unburied. But the Christian women of the 
city remained, tenderly nursing both friend 
and foe. Foremost among these ministers 
of mercy were, well may we believe, the 
deaconesses. The bishop of the Church in 
Alexandria tells how those of the workers 
who fell “died in triumph, while those who 
remained rejoiced greatly in the peace of 
Christ which He committed to us alone.” 
Julian the Apostate thought the Galilsean- 
fisherman theology to be folly, but there was 
one thing about it all that he could not un- 
derstand. He himself had failed to produce 
a charitable movement in paganism, which 
he patronized. But when he saw the fol- 
lowers of the Galilsean support the destitute 
of their persecutors as well as their own 
poor, he exclaimed, “It is a scandal!” Silly 
vassal of the world’s nightmares, he could 
not see that such pitying love must draw 
to itself the whole soul of paganism as 
morning sunlight drinks the dew. 

Thus for a little space this sweetest 
flower that ever grew from gospel stock put 
forth its beauty and its fragrance. In the 
darkness of superstition and night it chal- 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 

lenged the admiration and won the hearts 
of all true seekers after God. Into the per- 
ishing heathen world it exhaled a something 
“more precious than gold, more vital than 
art, more mighty than conquering legions.” 
As Matthew Arnold expresses it, “It drew 
from the spiritual world a source of joy so 
abundant that that joy was wafted out 
upon the material world and transfigured 
it.” For a little space this passion flower of 
God unfolded its white petals and breathed 
out its heavenly sweetness, bringing to im- 
prisoned souls the beauty, mystery, and ra- 
diance of the unthralled, royal life of the 
children of God. Then it withered. In the 
Latin Church, after the tenth or eleventh 
century, we find no sign of the order of 
deaconesses. In the Greek Church the 
order did not linger beyond the twelfth cen- 
tury. The word “deaconess” gradually fell 
into disuse. It well-nigh was forgotten. 
The reinstitution of deaconess work rein- 
carnates the triumphant life of the prim- 
itive Church. Wise and far-visioned is this 
return to a ministry hallowed by such divine 
possibilities of power. The hope of the 
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Church to-day lies in its ability to bring 
men back to the ethical standards and spir- 
itual practices of primitive Christianity. 
Thus alone can the Church shore back the 
contracting walls of society. Thus alone 
can she flash into the sloth of this age the 
force of her own convictions, the passion of 
her own resol ves.” The deep significance of 
deaconess work in this return to the methods 
of the primitive Church may be understood 
from the fact that 4 4 the teaching of the earli- 
est Christian homily which has come down 
to us elevates almsgiving to the chief place 
in Christian practice.” We may not accept 
the doctrine, but the fact remains. 44 Fast- 
ing is better than prayer; almsgiving is bet- 
ter than fasting; blessed is the man who is 
found perfect therein, for almsgiving light- 
ens the weight of sin.” (2 Clem. Rom. 16.) 

That wizard of Scottish story, Sir Walter 
Scott, in one of his most graphic pictures 
shows an evil knight dying on the field of 
battle. As earth is receding from his gaze 
this unhappy mortal marks rising around 
him the ghosts of his wicked past. Hopeless 
night is settling down upon his soul. Then 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 


beside the dying man kneels a woman. And 
as in tender pity she laves the warrior’s 
brow and strives to win him to thoughts of 
immortal weal, the poet, as if conscious that 
such an act in such an hour is freighted with 
the pathos of all humanity yearning for 
consolation, breaks off from the narrative. 
In thought so sweet, so simple, so elemental 
that the lines have become a hackneyed 
commonplace of English speech, an excla- 
mation lifts the mind to the universal: 

“O, Woman! in our hours of ease 
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, 

And variable as the shade 

By the light, quivering aspen made; 

When pain and anguish wring the brow 
A ministering angel thou!” 

Yes, to give a heartbroken, dying soul the 
cup of consolation to drink — that is the 
supreme secret of empire! The gospel, im- 
perative for the world’s betterment, is re- 
sistless when it knocks at a human heart 
with the appeal of a woman’s nursing, 
sympathy and prayers. Thus wooed, un- 
happy souls, dead spent and sinking into 
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midnight, leap to accept and to exalt the 
apostolic Christ-dream of the Church. 

When, summoned by the bell at her bed- 
side, Sister Dora rose to minister, the face 
of the sick sufferer faded. Christ’s face 
across her fancy came and gave the battle 
to her hands. When the Church is lifted 
up to behold in all its beatific beauty the 
face of Christus Consolator, then men and 
women will become tenderly obedient to 
His summons. His ministry will be their 
glory. In divine presence Christus Imper- 
ator will give the battle to our hands. 

For, what this world wants more than it 
wants money, or pleasure, or power, more 
than it wants life itself, is consolation. A 
conquering Church must have children of 
consolation, who, in a peculiar sense of 
utter self-effacement, will enter into the 
purposes of the Lord of Glory. When such 
children of the King will bring to Him in 
His Galilee their loaves and fishes, the 
eternal miracle of grace will live on. The 
multitudes need not be sent away; they 
shall be fed. While in the house of the 
leper, these Marys break the alabaster-box 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 

of ointment, the sweetness of the Redeemer 
will fill house and world. While these min- 
istering women prepare spices for the dead, 
each tomb has around it a garden, where, 
with the morning, waits the Master. And 
fainting hearts catch sight of a city which 
hath foundations eternal. For these, His 
messengers, are a divine fulfillment of that 
simile of the King’s honey-bees — these are 

“Singing masons building roofs of gold.” 


216 


PART III. 

CUP BEARERS WHO HAVE INFLU- 
ENCED THE HUMAN SPIRIT. 

“ Then opened I my mouth , and behold , there 
was reached unto me a full cup , which 
was full as it were with water ” 


From my recent experience in the Far East I am of the belief 
that religion has been and is to-day the most influential deter- 
mining cause of the differences between the races. . . . 

While I was in Tokyo I went with the Viscount Kaneko, one 
of our Harvard graduates, to a ceremony at a shrine in that city, 
where are deposited the rolls bearing the names of the young 
men of that district who died in the Russian War. These men 
having died young and unmarried, have no descendants to do 
them honor, so that nation has taken on itself that duty. Twice 
a year the Emperor and court officers, with great numbers of 
men from the army and navy and other walks of life, go to this 
temple. 

That afternoon I attended a meeting of Christian mission- 
aries, and to them I told of my experience in this Japanese 
temple, and mentioned that I had bowed toward the shrine. 
They felt that I had taken part in an idolatrous service. I thought 
I had seen and taken part in a very impressive ceremony, and 
one which was typical of the religion which has had such a deep 
effect in the formation of racial character in that country. 

We have seen nations, like Egypt, Greece, and Rome, rise 
and fall in the scale of civilization, and we think of them as 
weakened by luxury. There have been similar conquests of 
nations in the East, for instance the Manchu conquest of China 
300 years ago, but China, sustained by its continuing religion, 
has not been destroyed as were the Western nations. 

You know how the Western nations are declining now in 
civilization. For instance, here at Harvard the classes as a 
whole are not reproducing themselves. Disease destroys our 
families at a rate which is not paralleled in the East. The dif- 
ference is in the effect which religious beliefs have had on family 
life. — Address to Harvard Undergraduates, Cambridge, 
Mass., March 16, 1913. President Emeritus Charles W. 
Eliot. 


CHAPTER I. 


“THE MAGICIANS OF EGYPT DID SO 
WITH THEIR ENCHANTMENTS.” 

“City Government of Cairo. Entrance 
ticket to the fete of the Kissoura (Holy 
Carpet), which will take place at Mastabat 
El-Mahmal, at Mohammed Ali Place (cit- 
adel), Friday, 23 Sharoal, 1322 , at 9 o’clock 
in the evening.” Thus read our card, 
printed in French. Duly we presented our- 
selves as directed. At the Mastabat we 
were ushered at once by Adli Pasha him- 
self, the master of ceremonies, into a large 
reception-room, where the Holy Carpet was 
on exhibition. The carpet was hung on the 
walls of the room, completely covering 
them. In the place of honor, beside the 
carpet, sat an aged black sheik, its official 
guardian. Forty-five times had this old 
sheik accompanied a Holy Carpet to Mecca. 
But now so old and feeble did he seem as he 
sat there huddled up in his chair with a 
219 


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huge yellow shawl wrapped around his 
head, that not Mohammed himself seem- 
ingly could promise him another pilgrimage 
beyond the one now about to begin. 

By the side of this aged guardian of the 
carpet sat a row of ulemas or religious sheiks 
from the city mosques. These in turn were 
reciting prayers and passages from the 
Koran, keeping up an uninterrupted service 
of worship. Not that this religious exercise 
in any way interfered with the social exer- 
cises. On the contrary, conversation, smok- 
ing, coffee-drinking, serving of sweetmeats, 
and formal reception of guests went on as 
if there were nothing else appointed for the 
evening. And yet all the while, rising above 
every other sound in the room, there could 
be heard that weird, nasal, pathetic la- 
ment of the ulema keeping tryst beside the 
Holy Carpet. As we entered the reception- 
room, a blind sheik was taking his turn in 
repeating the confession of the prophet. I 
shall remember, I think, forever the tragic 
sound of that blind priest’s voice and the 
look of his sightless eyes as he half chanted, 
half wailed his guttural recitative to Allah. 

220 


CUP BEARERS. 


The central hall and adjoining rooms of the 
building were filled with the fashionable and 
official life of the city. As always on occa- 
sions like this, no women of Mohammedan 
faith were to be seen. Officers in uniform, 
tourists in dress coats, Arabs in long silken 
robes of richest coloring, exquisitely gowned 
ladies gossiping, sipping coffee and smoking 
cigarettes, high pashas gravely acting as 
hosts for the Khedive, whose guests we all 
were — there was everything there to dis- 
tract attention. And yet above it all and 
through it all there came back in almost 
painful iteration that weird sing-song of the 
blind ulema, swaying slowly in his seat, in 
rapt adoration before the Holy Carpet. 

This priestly praying, more than any- 
thing else, I think, forced us at least to re- 
alize where we were and what this city of 
our temporary refuge really represents. The 
modern character of Cairo, which strikes 
the new-comer so forcibly, is more seeming 
than real. There is, of course, that per- 
fectly modern quarter of the city to the 
west of the Ezbekiyeh Garden, a section of 
finely paved, well-drained and brilliantly 
221 


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lighted boulevards. There is around the 
large new hotels that famous stretch of 
modern apartment-houses and imposing 
European official residences. There is even 
a sort of French faubourg made up of cos- 
mopolitan shops and outfitters’ stores, thor- 
oughly satisfying to the most particular of 
American tourists and English holiday 
‘ 4 trippers.” Standing there in that noble 
square facing the Grand Opera House, 
which was built in three months by spend- 
thrift Ismail Pasha, almost every foreign 
visitor to the city exclaims at the modern 
European appearance of Cairo. And yet 
even here the outward appearance is only 
a thin veneer of builders’ plaster with an 
accommodating atmosphere loaned for the 
moment. Even here the substratum of 
Orientalism creeps through. Every turn 
brings you face to face with it. For here 
are the veiled harem beauties, with their 
sais runners holding up long rods in front 
of their carriages and shouting insolent 
cries of warning. 

Here along the most modern of boule- 
vards comes a group of fanatical Moham- 
222 


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medan pilgrims or a native funeral pro- 
cession, with its blind wailers in front and 
its hired female weepers behind. Around 
yonder corner, with its “Anglo-American 
Pharmacy” sign, there files perhaps a Mos- 
lem circumcision pageant combined, for 
economy’s sake, with some Cairene mar- 
riage party. In front of every hotel your 
steps will be dogged by turbaned hawkers 
of “antichi,” guaranteed by the mummy- 
snatchers of Luxor. While everywhere you 
will be shadowed by suave dragomans, 
speaking every language of earth, and prom- 
ising to show you all the kingdoms of this 
world and the glory of them for “anything 
you please,” in any kind of money. Yes, 
even at Shepheard’s, the fundamental, un- 
derlying Orientalism of Cairo confronts you, 
seizes you, challenges you to stand and 
mark its movement. 

But turn aside a street or two from the 
Ezbekiyeh quarter. Instantly old Cairo, 
the city of Saladin, the heart and capital 
of Orientalism itself, blind and unchanged, 
envelops and absorbs you. There above 
your head towers the ancient Saracen cit- 
223 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 

adel with its mosque of alabaster, enshrin- 
ing the bones of heroic Mohammed Ali. 
Just outside those picturesque stone gates 
lie the tombs of the Caliphs and of the 
Mamelukes. And a little further to the 
south will be found, still half-encircled by 
its ancient walls, Old Cairo, where, accord- 
ing to tradition, the Holy Family took 
refuge while in Egypt. This Old Cairo 
originally was called Babylon. Without 
doubt, it was the city of which the Apostle 
Peter, in his first Epistle, writes: “The 
Church that is at Babylon, elected together 
with you, saluteth you.” In the narrow, 
winding streets and through the tangle of 
bazaars at the foot of the Cairo citadel, you 
may wander for days, hearing sounds and 
seeing sights of which you have dreamed 
all your life. It is like a leaf out of the 
“Arabian Nights’ Tales.” You can not but 
feel moved by the changeless change of its 
amazing picturesqueness. Shop-keepers are 
sitting, lost in hashish visions of riches per- 
haps, among their sordid wares. Artisans 
of all trades are plying their tasks in the 
open street. Water-carriers with goat-skin 
224 


CUP BEARERS. 


water-bottles and ringing brass bowls in- 
vite you to quench your thirst. Native 
women are seen riding bunched together 
like little children, on rude flat donkey 
carts. Dancing girls, with their shameless 
eyes and their jewelry-laden fingers, be- 
seech you for piastres. Private guards and 
native kawasses, armed with Damascus 
weapons of price, ride by jostling every- 
body. The whole world of Orientalism 
pulses and throbs around you. This is 
Cairo. This is the metropolis of the Dark 
Continent. This is the city of Arabian 
song and story, at once the most fascinating 
and the most mysterious of the habitations 
of man. For yonder, just across the Nile, 
on the edge of the desert, lies that other, 
that nobler self of Cairo, her Gizeh Pyra- 
mids, with the Sphinx crouching at their 
base. The Pyramids, eternal reminder of 
the life at the heart of death, lift heaven- 
pointing triangles of purple against the 
transient glow of every sunset. The Sphinx, 
half lion, half man, with its inscrutable 
smile, looks across river, valley, and desert 
as if, forgetful of the present, it were ob- 

io 225 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


livious also to the past. It is looking, per- 
haps, for some morning, yet to dawn, when 
the riddle of life shall be read and the dark 
dream of the Sphinx itself shall be inter- 
preted. And as if fittingly to complete the 
setting of this strange city, we find its 
greatest fete, the festival of the Holy Car- 
pet, to be an occasion marked by all that 
same other-worldliness which from the be- 
ginning has made Egypt the study and the 
puzzle of mankind. 

What is this Holy Carpet? It is a cover- 
ing of black silk curiously embroidered, 
which is sent each year by the Khedive of 
Egypt as a tribute to Mecca, there to serve 
as a covering for the Kaaba or Black Rock 
in the great mosque of the Sacred City. 
This Kaaba, according to Mohammedan 
teaching, is the rock on which Abraham 
sought to offer up Ishmael (not Isaac). The 
mosque enclosing this rock is not the burial- 
place of Mohammed, as so many think, for 
the prophet sleeps at Medina, with no mon- 
ument whatever to mark his grave. This 
Mecca mosque stands on the site of the first 
earthly temple of worship, built for Adam 
226 


CUP BEARERS. 


by the angels. The carpet which thus is 
sent to cover the Kaaba is a precious fabric 
of great beauty, through the warp and woof 
of which cunningly are woven numberless 
texts from the Koran. Around the top of 
the carpet runs a frieze of Arabic writing 
embroidered in gold. Various other hang- 
ings and embroideries in colored silks go 
with the carpet. These all, with the holy 
covering itself, are made by four sheiks of 
the carpet-makers’ guild in Cairo. The 
four sheiks do nothing else throughout the 
year but make ready these offerings for 
Mecca. With the carpet and embroideries 
are sent also quantities of incense and 
spices. One year the caravan conveying 
the tribute was attacked by robbers, who 
almost succeeded in securing the Holy Car- 
pet and the entire outfit of the pilgrims. 
On this occasion, therefore, the caravan was 
furnished an escort of four hundred sol- 
diers having two Maxim guns and a battery 
of mountain artillery. 

The carpet, after the Khedive has bid- 
den it godspeed on its departure from the 
citadel, does not proceed at once to Mecca. 

m 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


It remains for a month in the mosque El 
Azhar, near the Mecca gate of Cairo. Here 
it receives the final touch of preparation, 
being sewn into proper shape, after which 
it proceeds upon its way. The great occa- 
sion, which we had the privilege to witness, 
is the formal transfer of the carpet from the 
citadel to the mosque of El Azhar. This 
occurs on the morning after its exhibition 
at the Mast ab at. 

We had been fortunate enough to secure 
a place near the Khedive himself, as he 
stood to review the caravan on the formal 
inauguration of its pilgrimage. For two 
hours before the appointed time the vast 
parade-ground was packed with people. In 
the center of the enclosure the holy cover- 
ing, with all its accompaniments, was on 
public view, and the populace took this oc- 
casion to examine it. Now for the first 
time we saw the Mahmal or gilded pagoda 
within which the Holy Carpet was to be 
carried. Long ago a beautiful Turkish 
female slave who had usurped the regal 
power in Egypt made her pilgrimage to 
Mecca in a magnificent covered litter borne 
228 


CUP BEARERS. 


by a camel, and for years after this same 
litter was sent empty with each year’s car- 
avan as a mark of State. In time this litter, 
receiving the name of Mahmal, came to be 
recognized as a sort of emblem of royalty. 
Of late it has been used as a fitting means 
of conveyance for the carpet itself. As we 
saw it, the Mahmal was indeed a gorgeous 
creation of turreted gilt and gold borne by 
a black camel of enormous size. 

While waiting for the arrival of the 
Khedive at the citadel square, there was 
much marching and counter-marching of 
troops and rumble of artillery, with the 
clash of military bands. The pomp of dis- 
play almost befitted the coronation of a 
king. All the while a great company of 
notables kept arriving — representatives of 
the nations, princes and princesses, her- 
alded by sais runners, ministers, beys, and 
pashas, high officers of the army, ladies 
from the palace. One wondered when it 
would end. 

The parade-ground, in the meantime, 
had been cleared, and in it the troops had 
been formed in a hollow square, with the 
229 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


Holy Carpet caravan in the center. Hardly 
had this been done when the Khedive, with 
escort of lancers and surrounded by his 
cabinet ministers, arrived in a carriage of 
State. Instantly boomed out a salute of 
artillery, while a massed military band be- 
gan to play the Khedivial march. His 
Highness alighted and took his stand for 
the review at the foot of the citadel. It was 
the very spot where the last of the Mame- 
lukes, by a miraculous leap on horseback 
from the wall above, had been saved from 
the wrath of the present Khedive’s great 
ancestor, Mohammed Ali. 

With a deafening crash of. field guns, the 
Holy Carpet caravan, led off by the black 
camel, bearing the Mahmal and guided by 
the aged black sheik, now began to move. 
It marched three times around in a circle 
within the hollow square of troops. 

The camel which thus bears to Mecca 
the Mahmal is held always in highest rev- 
erence. It has a distinctive title, Hagia 
Ferrag. Although selected with an eye to 
its powers of endurance, the Hagia Ferrag 
has but one duty in life, that of making 
230 


CUP BEARERS. 


the pilgrimage once a year to the Holy 
City. This done, the ‘creature feasts in 
idleness during the remainder of the year, 
being cared for by special attendants ap- 
pointed for the purpose. Upon its death 
the camel is buried with all the pomp and 
honor of a faithful Mussulman. The Hagia 
Ferrag which we saw start on its pilgrimage 
had made already three similar trips to 
Mecca. Its predecessor had borne the 
Mecca offering from the banks of the Nile 
no less than forty-five times. 

The spectacle which now met our eyes 
as the sacred camel bearing the golden 
pagoda wound slowly around the citadel 
square was most impressive. The gayly 
uniformed soldiers in their red fezes, stand- 
ing motionless, the roar of the great guns, 
the rattle of drums, and the scream of the 
wry-necked bag-pipes, the thrill of the 
trumpets, the clouds of gray, acrid smoke 
which hung over all like a curtain, and 
through which dimly could be discerned the 
caravans of camels, loaded with the tribute 
of Egypt — all this made up a picture never 
to be forgotten. When the railroad to 
231 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


Mecca is completed, the pilgrim caravan 
will cease to play its dramatic role in the 
annual visitation to the sacred place of 
Islam. As we watched the procession that 
day, the occasion seemed to mark the apex 
of Oriental splendor in religion. 

As the old shiek leading the Hagia Fer- 
rag finally completed for the third time the 
circle of the troops, he passed out into the 
highway leading toward Mecca. Here for 
a moment the caravan paused in front of 
the Khedive, who bade the sheik give ut- 
most care to the treasure now committed 
to his hands. A piece of newly-minted 
money was placed in the mouth of the 
camel as a sort of sacred bakhshish. Then 
His Highness, as a mark of his royal bounty, 
threw among the camel-drivers and others 
nearest him handfuls of silver coins, also 
fresh from the mint. The cynical drago- 
man by our side whispered that the coins 
were small, and that all together they only 
amounted in value to fifty dollars. 

The cortege, solemnly escorted by sheiks 
and chief tailors and high officers of State 
and army, now defiled slowly before the 
232 


CUP BEARERS. 


Khedive. His Royal Highness himself, 
again entering his carriage, closed the 
procession. As Abbas Pasha drove away 
the people broke through the lines and ran 
up to rub their handkerchiefs and robes on 
the sides of the Mahmal for the blessing 
which its touch at this time is supposed to 
give. The women of the crowd burst into 
high, shrill zaggareets of pleasure and re- 
ligious excitement. The zaggareet , by the 
way, is peculiar to Arab women. It can 
be learned even by them, however, so it is 
said, only while they are yet young. One 
of the first duties of an Arabian mother, 
therefore, is to teach her young daughters 
the zaggareet . As heard by us that morning, 
the zaggareet sounded like a warbling stac- 
cato trill made by the tongue rolling rapidly 
in the back of the mouth. The sound was 
at once pleasing and disconcerting. I never 
have heard anything resembling it. 

There was a time, before the English 
assumed control in Egypt, when the de- 
parture of the Holy Carpet for Mecca was 
marked by terrible scenes of fanaticism. 
Devotees bit, tore, and stabbed themselves. 

233 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


Dervishes lay down in the open streets 
and suffered their head priest on horse- 
back to gallop over them. Christian spec- 
tators often were killed by the maddened 
followers of the Prophet. But all this now 
is ended. Although no wearers of the Eng- 
lish king’s scarlet were to be seen that day, 
either in the procession or on the streets of 
Cairo, every Mohammedan, however fanat- 
ical, knew that those stalwart British men 
were there in full plenty for the business in 
hand. And even every Dervish knew, how- 
ever blinded he might be to all else, that 
the very hidden presence of those men in 
red meant for every man in Egypt decency 
and order and self-restraint. It is in the 
mouth of a Mohammedan that Kipling puts 
those suggestive lines, which every Egyptian 
now might quote as his own, recognizing the 
source of his present safety and prosperity: 

“And they were stronger hands than mine 
That digged the ruby from the earth, 

More cunning brains that made it worth 
The large desire of a King, 

And bolder hearts that through the brine 
Went down the perfect pearl to bring.” 


234 


CUP BEARERS. 


As the procession passed from sight I 
could not but follow it, in my mind’s eye, 
as it would wend its way over mountain 
and valley and sea, and across the swirling, 
burning sands of the desert. The Moham- 
medans say that when at last, after the 
long months of journeying, the caravan of 
the Mecca pilgrims comes in sight of the 
minarets of the Sacred City, Hagia Ferrag, 
the camel turns, under his gilded burden, 
and stretches out his neck and head to 
gaze. And such is his eagerness to reach 
the holy spot that a white foam gathers on 
his lips and mouth. The pilgrims, recog- 
nizing the sign of the Prophet, crowd 
around to wet their kerchiefs in the sacred 
froth, counting themselves in this most 
fortunate and blessed for evermore. 

But Cairo is not Egypt — certainly not 
the Egypt of Rameses. Cairo is an Arab 
city. The Cairene people are simply citi- 
fied Bedouins. Cairo has, of course, its 
Egyptian connections. But these are so 
well known — they have been pictured and 
described now so often that they seem to 
have lost any peculiarly racial distinction. 

23 5 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


They have become a cosmopolitan posses- 
sion. In Cairo, it is true, one finds the 
museum of Gizeh, matchless depository of 
many of the choicest treasures of Egypt. 
Nowhere else as there can you see the 
images of the gods, the ancient emblems of 
life and death, the mummy kings and 
queens of the bygone dynasties — Sethos and 
Amosis, Queen Ahhotep, Thutmosis III, and 
Great Rameses himself of the Oppression. 
Yes, these, and more, are all there, in 
Cairo by the Nile. And yet, even in Cairo, 
you feel an indefinable longing for Egypt. 
You crave the majesty of the ancient race. 
You yearn for the imperishable monu- 
ments, which you know lie behind the 
tawdry civilization of this mushroom me- 
tropolis of Mohammedanism. 

No rest will you know until you are 
launched upon the bosom of the Nile, with 
your face set toward the south. Then 
hardly have the minarets and domes of the 
city of the Khedive faded from sight before 
ancient Egypt, in all its mystery and stu- 
pendous majesty, looms across your con- 
sciousness. Some things, of course, even in 
236 


CUP BEARERS. 


Egypt, have felt the touch of the years. 
The Nile itself, that stream immortal of 
poet, priest, and dreamer, is changed. Its 
very bed is eleven feet higher than when a 
Pharaoh turned the course of the river to 
build Memphis. Below the first cataract 
one no longer can see those picturesque de- 
tails of nature which the Nile has furnished 
as illustrations to so many books of travel. 
No hoary crocodiles now sun themselves 
on these sand banks. No hippopotami float 
like islands on the tawny tide. No bul- 
rushes line, like serried spears, the water- 
lapped margins of the fields. No lotus 
blooms, no papyrus whispers in the evening 
breeze. No ship of the dead ferries its 
mummified Pharaoh to his rock-hewn tomb 
in the hills. Railway express trains and 
tourist steamers now supplant even the 
“dahabeyeah” for Nile locomotion. Tall 
chimneys of sugar factories and spirit dis- 
tilleries dot the shore. Lebbek trees and 
palms planted in increasing profusion, begin 
to break the weary flatness of level field, 
edged by stretching sand. The Nile current 
is become a common carrier for cargoes of 
237 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


sugar cane, bridge iron, and petroleum. 
While, as if to corroborate, even in Egypt, 
Mr. Stead’s theory as to the Americanization 
of the world, the Standard Oil Company’s 
tin cans for petroleum, when once emptied, 
are seen to be utilized in every village with 
truly Yankee adaptation to human need. 
They are water-buckets and cooking-stones, 
mirrors, soup-tureens, packing-boxes for 
Turkish Delight, writing-slates for children, 
material for native ornaments and dagger- 
scabbards and a thousand other things under 
the Egyptian sun. 

Beyond the Gizeh Pyramids the steamer 
halts at the landing-place of Bedrashin. 
Here stood Memphis, that great city. But 
now the ancient capital is indeed but heaps, 
a howling place for jackals. Among the 
palms, two colossal statues of Rameses II 
lend something of human interest to that 
desolate scene. On one of these Colossi the 
dragoman points out the cartouche of 
Moses, though who chiseled it there no 
man knoweth. The inscription, still legible 
on the pedestal base of the better preserved 
of the two statues, has been put into verse: 

238 


CUP BEARERS. 


“ My name is Ozymadias, King of Kings, 

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.” 

Then the poet adds: 

“Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare 
The lone and level sands stretch far away.” 

A short gallop across the desert, through 
a struggling line of bakhshish-begging Arabs, 
brings one to Sakkara, the ancient necrop- 
olis of Memphis. The road leads past the 
Step Pyramid, a huge pile of stone laid 
in tiers which antedates, perhaps, every 
other human architectural remain now upon 
earth. At Sakkara, the tomb of Ti, with 
its exquisite low relief carvings, depicting 
the life activities of the dead man, is a 
biography in stone of the typical ancient 
Egyptian lord. But the Serapeum, or 
burial place of the sacred bulls of Egyptian 
worship is, of course, the center of interest . 
The discovery by the French savant, Ma- 
riette, of this subterranean resting-place of 
two hundred incarnations of Osiris in the 
form of a bull, reads like a page out of the 
239 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


Haroun A1 Raschid adventures. Mariette 
says that as he entered one chamber in 
which the Apis, or sacred bull, had not 
been disturbed since it had been put there 
by its worshipers thirty-seven centuries be- 
fore, he was overwhelmed with astonish- 
ment. Everything, including the embalmed 
remains of the bull, was in its original con- 
dition. “The finger-marks of the Egyptian 
who had inserted the last stone in the wall 
built to conceal the doorway, were still rec- 
ognizable in the lime. There were also the 
marks of naked feet imprinted on the sand 
which lay in one corner of the tomb -cham- 
ber.” Nearly four thousand years had 
slipped by those footprints in the sand. 

From Memphis the steamer makes its 
way up against the current toward Luxor. 
Various points of varying interest are vis- 
ited by the way — the tombs of Benihasan, 
of Tel el Amarna, and of Assiut, the temples 
of Dendera and Abydos, and whatever else 
the guide-books and dragoman may point 
out. Slowly now comes the feeling, ever 
more certain, that not these ruined cities 
with their tombs, temples, and sacred carv- 
240 


CUP BEARERS. 


ings, not the obelisks, sphinxes, and pyra- 
mids, not any of these memorials of millen- 
niums dead and gone, are what make up 
the real charm and mystery of Egypt. It is 
not even the unusual and shifting scenes of 
life constantly met by the way, although 
these certainly fill every hour of the jour- 
ney with profound interest. You see scantily 
clad Fellaheen, with misshapen buffaloes and 
Noachian implements, cultivating the choc- 
olate-colored soil to the very edge of the 
water, adding a new furrow whenever the 
receding river offers room. Or you see 
them filling their Danais’ barrels without 
bottom, irrigating the land that never can 
drink enough, despite all efforts of well- 
sweep shadoofs or creaking sakldeh wheels. 
Morning and evening you mark the young 
women and girls of the villages trooping 
down to the river to fill their balasses or clay 
water-jars, which they lightly bear away on 
their heads, all the while holding modestly 
about them their yelabiehs , or blue cot- 
ton gowns, which veil without hiding their 
statuesque grace of figure. You descry off on 
the edge of the sandhills armed Bedouins 
16 241 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 

with their camels, passing slowly on to some 
distant oasis or encampment. Occasionally 
a jackal yelps, or a pelican or a crane, fly- 
ing heavily, startles you with its splash. 
But these all soon pass. These are not 
what now slowly but imperiously take hold 
upon you, heart, mind, and soul, with al- 
most a superhuman obsession. No, not 
these. It is the Nile itself, vast and mys- 
terious, without tributary or subsidiary aid, 
pulsing from its unseen sources, a veritable 
river of life, into the heart of this bitter 
desert, and here commanding, as it were, 
against all nature a never-ending cycle of 
harvests. And it is the Desert itself, most 
wonderful of all, the Desert, yellow, lonely, 
sad, illimitable. Now it blazes like fire in 
the tropical noon; again it is mellow in the 
long afternoon when the changing lights and 
shifting shadows interplay, hour after hour; 
now it is swept by the terrible khamsin , or 
sand storm; now it lies ghostly, ivory-white, 
as under the face of evening’s silvery- 
mantled queen, the shining stars ride forth, 
one by one. Some one has said, “The Nile 
is Egypt and Egypt is the Nile.” This 
242 


CUP BEARERS. 


saying I would amend — The River and the 
Desert, these two are Egypt, and Egypt is 
but these; all her life and history are only 
an illuminated page of their making. 

Luxor, with its temple of Karnak, is, 
of course, the pilgrim resort of all who have 
a mind for Egyptian archaeological lore. I 
shall not attempt to describe Karnak, a 
temple which still is one of the wonders of 
the world. With its sphinxes and obelisks, 
its pylons and vast hypostyle hall of Sethos 
and Rameses, Karnak is simply indescrib- 
able. The one monument recording the 
victory of Shishak over Jeroboam is, in 
itself, fit subject for a volume of erudition. 

But the modern little town of Luxor 
itself knows a thing or two. One-half of 
the entire population of the place, it is said, 
is engaged in the manufacture of antiqui- 
ties. The other half, certainly, is engaged 
in hawking these same “antichi” to tour- 
ists. A citizen of Luxor endeavored to sell 
me a guaranteed antique scarab as big as my 
fist. Upon my repudiating the “guar- 
antee” of such a scarab, the son of Ishmael 
exclaimed, “Well, the stone of which it is 
243 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


made is old!” In passing, I might add that 
the beautiful antique tint so much admired 
in Luxor scarabs is acquired through their 
having been fed to turkeys. 

Luxor is the headquarters for the don- 
key-boys and general bakhshish gatherers. 
Every donkey here bears the name which, 
for the moment, seemingly will please best 
its rider. Thus the donkey which one lady 
of our party rode one morning was called 
“Lovely Sweet.” In the afternoon of the 
same day the same donkey, a most contrary 
beast, being now bestridden by a lusty 
German, bore the title “Bismarck.” My 
own donkey was prepared for any nation- 
ality of rider through a happy triology of 
names — “Sambo,” “Kitchener of Sudan,” 
and “Marseillaise.” 

This bustling little town of Luxor marks 
the spot where stood ancient Thebes, that 
Egyptian Thebes of which Homer sings: 

“The hundred-gated Thebes, where twice ten score 
in martial state 

Of valiant men with steeds and cars march 
through each massive gate.” 

244 


CUP BEARERS. 


From the time of the Middle Empire 
(2200 — 1700 B. C.) Thebes was the great 
city of Egypt. It was always the favorite 
seat of the Pharaohs. Its palaces and 
sacred structures “in which the heaps of 
precious ingots gleam,” for miles lined both 
banks of the Nile. To-day the ruined 
temples and royal tombs of the ancient 
city still can be seen in broken majesty. 
The Colossi of Memnon sitting in the de- 
serted fields behind the city seem mourners 
for its vanished state. 

Two of the royal tombs of Thebes are 
of deathless interest. One is the tomb of 
Marenptah, the Pharaoh of the Exodus. 
A huge granite mummy-case, carved in the 
likeness of the king, lies in the sepulchral 
chamber of the tomb. The great stone face 
wears a look of wonderful peace and regal 
majesty. But the sarcophagus is empty. 
Standing there within that empty tomb one 
needs but little imagination to hear the 
roar of pursuing chariots as they drive 
heavily in the sands of the sea, and to catch 
the far-borne scream of drowning horse- 
men. Egyptologists tell us that they have 
245 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


found this lost Pharaoh of the empty sep- 
ulcher. He was in a coffin bearing the name 
of Set-nekht, which was hidden away in 
another tomb. A scribe’s inscription on his 
mummy bandage, however, identified Mar- 
enptah. The Bible narrative makes no 
definite statement that this Pharaoh was 
drowned in the Red Sea. And now, with 
his aquiline nose and determined jaw, re- 
sembling all the Sety-Rameses race, this 
long-lost Pharaoh of the Exodus reappears 
to conjure up thoughts and emotions of 
which he little did dream. The tomb in 
which he was concealed was that of Amen- 
hotep the II. 

This Second Amenhotep’s last sleeping- 
place is one of the most impressive sights 
in Egypt. The chamber of the dead, 
painted and decorated in colors as fresh 
apparently as the day they were laid on, 
was concealed most artfully at the foot of 
a deep shaft hewn into the mountain. Thus 
the tomb escaped all detection until quite 
recently. To-day the whole sepulcher is 
preserved just as it was found. The royal 
mummy lies in his stone sarcophagus sur- 
246 


CUP BEARERS. 


rounded with wreaths of flowers, and with 
the calm face upturned just as the monarch 
was laid there in dreamless sleep three thou- 
sand four hundred years ago. An electric 
light illumines the features of the king. 
Moses and Marenptah had not yet been 
born when this Pharaoh was decked for 
burial. 

“ Asleep in the mountain’s heart, oh king 
Of Egypt’s ancient line, 

How strange would seem this later world 
To those sealed eyes of thine. 

The Nile tide bringeth life and hope, 

While countless ages roll, 

But not three thousand years have solved 
The mystery of thy soul. 

Three thousand years of dreamless sleep 
God’s cycles traveling fast 
Are but three yesterdays with Him, 

A night watch that is past. 

The Jewish kings have turned to dust; 

The Persian’s might is spent; 

No more the haughty Syrian strides 
In pomp before his tent. 

Thou wert sleeping there when Bethlehem’s star 
Was blazing in the sky; 

Still slumbering thro’ the awful gloom 
Which hung o’er Calvary.” 

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THE CUP OF FIRE. 


From Luxor the tendency nearly always 
is to hurry to Assouan. Esneh, with its 
half-buried sanctuary of the ram-headed 
God, Edfu, with its well-nigh perfect temple 
of Horus, Kom Ombo, the place of crocodile 
worship, all soon are left behind. Each 
spot named is a spot whither the tribes go up, 
the tribes whose god is Bakhshish. And so, 
in safety, we come to Assuan and Philae. 

Assuan, the frontier post of ancient 
Egypt, is a charming spot. If one could 
be content with rainless air and purely 
desert-fed existence, helped out by sword- 
dancing Besharin and a native Nubian 
bazaar with an incredible price-elasticity, 
Assuan would be a paradise. But for most 
people Assuan, with all its attractions, is 
simply the most convenient point of de- 
parture for Philae. 

The island and temple of Philae, sit- 
uated a few miles south of the cataract at 
Assuan, together form a fitting climax to 
the Nile experience. The great dam built 
across the river just above the cataract is 
threatening already the existence of the 
Philae shrine. Although, when we were 
248 


CUP BEARERS. 


there, the stored waters had crept well up 
the trunks of the sacred palm-trees, and 
even were washing the bases of some of 
the columns and flooding the temple floors, 
the sanctuary itself as yet was uninjured. 
It still rose above the encircling river like 
a jewel set in crystal. The gray pylons and 
colonnades silhouetted against the water and 
the palms, with the bright desert and som- 
ber granite mountains in the background, 
is one of the world’s most precious pictures. 
For romantic beauty the scene is unequaled, 
perhaps, anywhere upon earth. Seen once, 
it shines forever after on the inner eye. 
But the waters, alas, continue to rise. 

The temple of Philae was the national 
shrine of the goddess Isis. The island was 
called the Holy Land. Near it “no fish 
had power to swim or bird to fly, and upon 
its soil no pilgrim might set foot without 
permission.” Let none, therefore, now pro- 
fane this spot. Let none seek to put into 
human words the divine secrets of Hathor 
and Horus. Let none describe in vulgar 
symbols the resurrection mysteries of the 
chamber of Osiris. 


249 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


It is enough to know that they who died 
in the hope of Philae’s promise of an eternal 
morning, as proof of their faith, must be 
able, before the judgment seat of Osiris, 
truthfully to declare: 

“I have not killed, 

I have not committed adultery, 

I have not stolen, 

I have not told lies, 

I have not cursed God, 

I have not tampered with the weight of the 
balance, 

I have not done evil, 

I am pure, pure, pure.” 

This temple has known all changes. 
Built by the Ptolemies, despoiled by the 
Nubians, put under edict by the Romans, 
desecrated by the Copts, reconstructed by 
the Greeks, garrisoned by the Turks, it has 
outlived them all. Lifting its painted pillars 
and perfectly -proportioned Kiosk above the 
Nile, it has cast its spell on even the river 
Bedouin, until his most sacred oath is by 
Him who sleeps in Philae. Legend says 
that near this shrine Osiris dwells throned 
in mystery, white-shrouded and having his 
250 


CUP BEARERS. 


face green, crowned with the crown of 
Egypt, with Isis, his faithful wife, watching 
beside him; and that the temple itself is 
but waiting for the hour when again the 
“Lamentations of Isis” shall be recited on 
its threshold. We make light of such tales, 
but Philae, this pagan shrine, Philae some- 
how draws and haunts us, and it is because 
of Philae, perhaps — who knows? — that the 
old saying is so true, “Who drinks Nile 
water must return.” As to what else might 
be told of the temples and the worship, 
which even in the day of Moses had grown 
hoary under darkening incantations, we 
fain would not learn of books. But, like 
old Sir Thomas Browne, rather would we 
send Imagination herself to stand by the 
side of Time, that “swathed figure seated 
in the gloom of twilight on the sands of 
Egypt,” and hear his muffled murmurings 
as he answers all questions concerning the 
deeds of them who, when the searchings 
of the human spirit were only beginning, 
dwelt by the flood of the Nile. 


251 


CHAPTER II. 


THE ORACLE OF DELPHI. 

It was only a sprig of laurel, but from it 
grew this chapter. And as now I look at the 
green leaves, although withered, they recall 
a scene of fadeless beauty. 

We had crossed the Corinthian Gulf in 
a crawling night craft, which our courier 
abused in classic expletives because she 
was English. In the gray dawn we had dis- 
embarked at Itea, of obscure name, but of 
great history. For Itea, be it known, was 
the port at which of old landed the pilgrims 
to Delphi. The history of Itea, however, 
like that of some American families still 
existing, is all in the past. Only one 
“Turk ship,” dilapidated and held for debt, 
rolled clumsily at anchor. Pausanias him- 
self might have been ferried to shore in the* 
antique contrivance in which we sculled, 
baled, and finally, by dint of calling upon 
all the saints, floated to the sands. 

252 


CUP BEARERS. 


On treading sacred soil I noticed at once 
that the modern provincial Greek retains 
much of the unconventionality in life and 
custom which rendered his forefathers so 
interesting to barbarians. The first sight 
which met my eye was that of two mur- 
derers handcuffed and bound with new 
cords, whom their soldier guards most 
courteously were supplying with cigarettes, 
while at the same moment, with loaded 
carbines, they threatened their lives. 

The rude inn, or khan, at which we had 
tea, after instructing the khan-keeper how 
to make it, could have supplied elements of 
interest throughout the day. Indeed, it 
did during the entire succeeding day, since 
our expected express steamer on the mor- 
row was thirteen hours late. For the mo- 
ment, however, we were content with a 
cursory acquaintance with long-haired papa, 
or priest, with nargileh-smoking Albanian 
and outlandish peasant. Even the many 
donkeys bearing wine in hairy microbial 
wine-skins, each filthy skin an object tem- 
perance lesson, possessed small interest. A 
long string of burdened camels out of the 
253 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


morning land could not hold us. Our eyes 
and hearts were lifted toward the moun- 
tains — domed Parnassus and his stretching 
slopes, with the nearer cliffs of Kirphis. 
Already in the morning glow the heights 
were taking on I know not what of mystery 
and charm. Three horses in the lightest of 
conveyances were needed for the ascent. 

Again I found that we were traveling 
under classic conditions. On entering a 
hard-looking, mud-walled village some dis- 
tance above the plain, Pais, myrtle-crowned, 
came along with a wine-jar, and under 
cover of this proffered courtesy, an auda- 
cious attempt was made to victimize me. 
I could not understand the affair until I 
had consulted that never-failing companion 
of innocents abroad, the red-covered guide- 
book of Baedeker. The village, which the 
natives called Chryso, was the evil descend- 
ant in the tenth generation of that old 
Krissa of notorious repute, which twice in 
the past had been destroyed for the habit 
which it had of plundering the pilgrims on 
their way to Delphi. 

But even the pleasurable thrill of living 
254 


CUP BEARERS. 

over again an ancient lamentation and a 
wrong quickly vanished. The hours labo- 
riously were marked by a constant climb 
along ever-rising mountain slopes. A Greek 
sun, always by calendar thirteen days 
warmer than the same luminary at home in 
America, mounted to its zenith. The un- 
shaded rays of the semi-tropical sun were 
reflected pitilessly by the dazzling white 
limestone road. In a new and personal 
sense came home that saying, “Steep are 
the heights of Parnassus.” Even the human 
interest of the scene had shrunk to a sad 
and sinister suggestion of utmost poverty. 
A few wretched mud huts; a woe-begone 
woman, under some fearful burden, stag- 
gering down the mountain side; here and 
there an occasional shepherd, armed like a 
gentleman from Georgia, and stretched out 
under his shaggy cloak asleep beside his 
silent flock — that was all. Far below the 
barren road lay a burning, yellow plain, 
dotted with deserted tombs amid dead vine- 
yards and dusty olive trees. In the distance 
the prospect ended with the blue glint of a 
lonely, cloud-shadowed sea. 

255 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 

Regret for the enthusiasm which had 
drawn me, like the bygone worshipers of 
the Far-Darting One, across mountains and 
continents and oceans to such a goal, stole 
in upon me. Drowsy from the heat and 
the motion of the carriage, I was about to 
renew the acquaintance of another friend 
of schoolboy days, Morpheus, when sud- 
denly a branch of fresh green leaves was 
thrust into the carriage window. The 
branch was followed by a shapely brown 
hand and a young girl’s smiling face. 
“ Apollo!” she cried, “Apollo! Apollo!” 
Then, clinging like a young nymph to the 
step of the carriage as we started forward 
at a brisker pace along a level stretch of 
road, the newcomer, who seemed to have 
sprung from the soil like those earth-born 
daughters of the fable, kept calling that 
mystic name, “Apollo!” 

The face of the girl was pure Greek, the 
first real Hellenic face that I had seen even 
in Greece. Evidently the young Kuria, or 
Miss, as the Greeks use the phrase, was of 
Megara stock, that one last strain of pure 
256 


CUP BEARERS. 


Hellenic blood which has kept itself un- 
contaminated from Albanian and Slav. 
The head, with hair falling loosely over a 
low brow, with its straight nose, laughing 
brown eyes, and full, curving mouth, was 
charming. It was the head of young Nau- 
sicaa greeting again the far - wandered 
stranger as he came up out of the sea. But 
who and what was she? Had we dropped 
a millennium or two and joined one of those 
pagan processions in honor of Apollo, which, 
in the Delphic month, wound up the sacred 
way? And was this a priestess of Delphi? 

As once more the young girl held out 
the fragrant leaves and urged me to take 
them, suddenly the meaning of it all was 
clear. This was the entrance to Delphi. 
Indeed, already we had entered upon the 
sacred way. For just as the carriage 
swung around a spur in the mountain there 
burst upon the sight in all its loveliness, 
exactly as Pausanias has described it, that 
shrine immortal, “ violet-wreathed, brilliant, 
most enviable.” And these shining green 
leaves in the brown hand before me were 
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17 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


laurel, sacred laurel, chosen emblem of 
Apollo, plucked in the very temple-temenos, 
or sacred inclosure, of the sun-god. 

Delphi, even as seen in its ruin, is in- 
spirational. I was speaking with one of the 
best-known present-day writers of Greece 
concerning the impression which such a 
scene can not fail to make upon all who 
take any interest in classical antiquity. 
“Yes,” replied the Greek, “it was such 
scenes as that from the Acropolis of Athens 
and that at Delphi which gave Lord Byron 
his noblest inspirations.” Then, apologiz- 
ing for any errors in English pronunciation, 
the patriot paused, and, after a moment, 
with voice deepening and eye kindling, he 
repeated in faultless phrase those lines in 
which the hero of Missolonghi, forgetting 
his cynicism and Weltschmerz , laid, with 
sure hand and loving heart, his wreath of 
laurel on the shrine of Apollo: 

“Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run, 
Along Morea’s hills the setting sun; 

Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright. 
But one unclouded blaze of living light! 


258 


CUP BEARERS. 


On old iEgina’s rock and Idra’s isle 
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile; 
O’er his own regions lingering, loves to shine, 
Though there his altars are no more divine. 


Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep, 

Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to sleep.” 

The sacred precinct behind the Delphian 
cliff is, indeed, a place where souls of 
nobler cast than Lord Byron might find 
wings for song. If the groves were God’s 
first temples, then are the heights, as the 
Greeks imagined, the altar where the All- 
Father answers human prayer. Like an 
eagle’s eyrie on its precipice edge between 
the shining cliffs at the heart of Parnassus, 
the Apollo shrine at Delphi is more than a 
mere priestly retreat. Far from the striv- 
ing world of war and commerce, greed, love, 
and hate, placid among clouds as its keepers 
and its husbandmen, the place is peaceful 
with a calm divine. 

No pen ought to venture to describe this 
high place of nature and of nature-worship. 
Bocklin alone, had he lived, might have 
dared to paint it; Bocklin, that artist- 
259 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


dreamer misunderstood, who for once with 
common earthly materials succeeded in pic- 
turing those indescribable morning lights 
and mysterious twilights which are seen in 
some of nature’s rare moods, as witnessed 
along the coast of Dalmatia and in the 
island of Corfu. The critics railed. Such 
scenes, they declared, were the mere color- 
madness of an art-degenerate. But Bock- 
lin, even according to art canons, was right 
and the critics were wrong, as critics some- 
times may be. And, as I said, had Bocklin, 
instead of dying at the untimely age of 
forty-four, lived to riper years, he might 
have left to posterity some fitting sugges- 
tion of that supreme symbol of the pagan 
glory of Greece, her mountain precipice and 
shrine of the sun-god. 

Delphi, the actual city and shrine, is not 
seen at first by one approaching from be- 
low. It is only as the visitor rounds the 
corner of a curious elbow-like recess at the 
heart of the mountain, and turns abruptly 
to the left, that suddenly across a deep 
gulf at his feet the whole panorama of the 
Delphic precinct is unrolled before him. 

260 


CUP BEARERS. 


Backed by colossal steeps and a gloomy 
gorge, from which the shadows never are 
lifted, the shrine is fronted by an abyss 
vast and awesome. Away to the north, 
across the valleys, looms cloud-wreathed 
Olympus. 

Once the entire site was buried. Per- 
sians, fire and earthquake, waterspouts, 
Venetians, Turks, and thunderstorms, and, 
most relentless of all, the slow, corroding 
march of the obliterating years had done 
their worst. Archaeologists feared that 
Delphi the divine had ceased to be. A 
squalid, straggling village of race mongrels, 
with their offal heaps, covered all the spot. 
Only here and there some fragment of 
marble cropping out gave courage for hope. 
When first the project of an excavation 
was broached, America might have gained 
the privilege. But delays occurred. France, 
quick to seize anything that may glorify 
herself, secured the prize. She appropriated 
two million francs to the cause, the mon- 
grels were ousted, and Delphi was given 
back to the world. 

The ancient city now lies exposed, 
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throughout length and bound, tenantless, 
and as if asleep. All the upper walls and 
more towering columns are gone. In some 
spots only a cavernous crypt or cellar re- 
mains. Still, it is Delphi. With care one 
can trace clearly the position and contour 
of nearly every ancient building of im- 
portance. The stadium and theater and 
baths, the lesser sanctuaries, gymnasia, and 
treasuries, the votive pillars and priests’ 
dwellings, the noble winding sacred way, 
paved in Parnassus limestone — they all are 
there. On thirty terraces the city rises 
until upon its uplifted brow is seen, like a 
snowy crown, that marble dream of Hellenic 
paganism, the Temple of Apollo. What 
this temple may have been in its prime no 
man can say. Only this we know, that it 
was all in gleaming white precious marble. 
Over its portal was carved the famous 
saying, “Know Thyself.” Within its inner- 
most holy cella gleamed in wood, in brass, 
and in pure gold the enigmatical “E.” The 
temple was surrounded by a wilderness of 
statues. Everywhere were private and na- 
tional offerings. The place contained the 
262 


CUP BEARERS. 


plunder of three continents. It was the 
richest as well as the most sacred shrine 
of the ancient world. 

On the bases of some of the votive pillars 
still are legible illustrious names, names of 
men who have made history. Hither had 
come Miltiades, fresh from the victory of 
Marathon, and Aristides, before the great 
venture of Salamis. Pericles, Neoptole- 
mus, Lysander, Solon, Croesus, Themisto- 
cles, King Amasis of Egypt, Gelon, Alex- 
ander the Great — they all had come, and 
kneeling here had paid their tribute and 
whispered the burning question which tor- 
mented and controlled them. 

My guide sought to distinguish and trace 
out in one side of the temple foundation 
the cave of the sibyl of Apollo. In this 
cave the priestess, seated on her golden 
tripod over the chasm whence came the 
intoxicating vapor, or breath of the god, 
found inspiration to solve the problems of 
the suppliants. But the sibyl’s cave had 
vanished. We found, still intact, the stone 
slab on which the tripod of the priestess 
had rested. There, in one end of the slab, 
263 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


could be seen the circular orifice, still vapor- 
stained, through which the divine afflatus 
had come. But all else around, shattered 
by some long-gone seismic disturbance, was 
indistinguishable chaos. The tripod-stone 
alone, however, might have served as an 
altar in the temple of humanity. During 
a thousand years, in all the circle of civili- 
zation, hardly an affair of State, or plan of 
war, or enterprise freighted with results for 
the people had been entered upon without 
first being brought to that gray slab of rock 
as its touchstone. 

Descending from the temple and cave of 
Apollo, the sacred way of the pilgrims 
winds toward the left. Passing out the 
precinct portal, it turns quickly to an inner 
gorge between approaching cliffs. Here, at 
the foot of a ravine where the mountain 
walls almost join, and where the sun seldom 
penetrates, there is a small square chamber 
or hollow hewn out of the living rock. In 
this hollow bubbles forth a fountain. The 
crystal water is ice-cold. The tinkle of its 
flow is like sweetest music. This is the 
famous Castalian fountain. Near here it 
264 


CUP BEARERS. 


was that my little Greek friend had plucked 
for me the laurel of Apollo. The spot al- 
ways has been deemed of sacred interest. 
To the ancients, “the grandeur of the 
scenery, the ice-cold water, and the cur- 
rents of air streaming down from the gorge 
behind seemed to assure a divine pres- 
ence. Even to-day the place retains a cer- 
tain sense of sanctity. Around the fountain 
basin are cut steps or resting-places for the 
pilgrims. In the cliff wall at the back are 
chiseled niches for votive offerings. The 
spot probably is unchanged. To-day it is 
as it was when the worshipers of the slayer 
of Pytho came to wash in the fountain. 
For it was the law of Delphi that all peti- 
tioners in penitence must wash and sprinkle 
themselves in the water of the Castalian 
spring before ascending to consult the oracle 
in the mountain cleft above. Not without 
its own elemental appeal to the human heart 
was this provision. And on observing how 
deeply worn were the stone steps of the 
fountain, one could not but ponder a little 
on the untold burdened souls who there 
had sought lustration from fear and sor- 
265 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


row and sin. This tradition of the cleans- 
ing power of the waters of Castalia lived 
on in the lustral sprinkling by the pontifex 
maximus of pagan Rome. It reappears to- 
day in the application of holy water in the 
Roman Catholic Church. So far-reaching 
was that ancient Pythian requirement, 

“To the pure precincts of Apollo’s portal, 

Come, pure in heart, and touch the lustral wave; 
One drop sufficeth for the sinless mortal; 

All else, e’en ocean’s billows can not lave.” 

As here we took leave of the shrine of 
Delphi, we met a group of peasants from 
the neighborhood, with stupid, owl-like, 
wondering eyes, come to wash their clothes 
at the fountain. To them (as happens so 
often, alas ! in this poor world) the fountain 
was something utterly commonplace. Those 
waters immortal, which, like the waters of 
Shiloah, go softly, served simply as a con- 
venient wash tub, always full when every 
other source of supply for an out-of-door 
laundry ran dry. Fortunately for our after 
memories of the place, our little priestess of 
Apollo now reappeared bearing new offer- 
266 


CUP BEARERS. 


ings from the patron deity, and wishing us 
a naive, gentle farewell. 

And thus, with fitting adieu, we left 
them, the circling mountains and col- 
umned ruins of the world’s most famous 
heathen shrine — left them as they slowly 
and sadly darkened in the violet haze and 
purple shadows of parting day. Some such 
picture as this, doubtless, filled the sightless 
eye of him who sang, “Then Apollo came 
down like night, and dire was the clang of 
his silver bow.” 

At the celebration at Harvard of the 
seventieth birthday of President Eliot, he 
who was the fitting recipient of the gratula- 
tions of that hour declared that of all the 
honors which the day had brought, none 
had touched him more deeply than the 
following tribute. Some one had sent him, 
through the mail, an envelope. On opening 
it, he found that the envelope contained 
simply a single green leaf, but that leaf was 
laurel. And the great concourse of the loyal 
sons of Harvard who were present and 
heard burst into tumultuous cheers. 

Yes, the oracle of Apollo may be dumb, 
267 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


Pan may be dead. But the voice of Delphi, 
which even Plato affirmed was always for 
good, still sounds across the world. Her 
laurel still is green with a mighty faith. 
For wherever love of country, virtue, truth, 
godliness may appear, in whatever tongue 
or language they may be heard, in what- 
ever human experience they offer example 
or encouragement, there sacred Delphi again 
speaks, and there is found the true girding 
for life. 


268 


CHAPTER III. 


SWAMIS WITH THEIR FAIRIES. 

One of the influential American public 
prints not long ago published an editorial 
entitled “The Yogi Business.” The edi- 
torial commented upon the fact that this 
“business” has taken root in the United 
States, and is flourishing in widely-scattered 
soils. Attention was called to the fact that 
one of the main assets of Yogiism seems to 
be a “Swami,” or “god-man.” In passing, 
the author of the article went on to cite a 
celebrated case of an American widow of 
international reputation who, under the in- 
fluence of one of these “Swamis,” heard 
human voices in harp strings, saw angelic 
faces in apple-blossoms, and received per- 
sonal signals from the stars of heaven. 
After disposing of her large fortune in a 
lop-sided will that brought the case into 
the courts, ends the narrative, the widow 
died in a madhouse. The experience of this 
269 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 

widow is characteristic of “The God-Man 
Craze.” Attention has been called to it 
merely to illustrate the mental and moral 
phenomena that result from the teaching 
and influence of the Swami. Even so, 
however, such illustration is an exotic. It 
is not quite just to the Swami, because it is 
not taken from his own home environment. 
It does not reveal the yellow-robed god-man 
at full length. It is only a snapshot, as it 
were, at one of the merely casual varieties 
of religious experience under the spiritual 
tutelage of the Swami. The cup which the 
Hindu god-man puts to the lips of hu- 
manity can be tested and analyzed only 
where that cup is drunk undiluted and un- 
trammeled. India is the home of the 
Swami. Whatever may be his romantic 
setting forth of strange doctrine in America, 
Hindusim is his cult. And in India alone 
can one gauge Hinduism. To test aright 
the cup of the god-man one needs to mark 
its effects upon those who for centuries have 
quaffed it at his hand. Such evidence none 
may dispute. The evil outcome for the 
Western woman who here and there comes 
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CUP BEARERS. 


under the sway of the Swami can be fore- 
cast with unerring accuracy. For she is 
simply one of his American fairies. While 
as yet these are only few in number, they 
are in spirit and fate like unto their Hindu 
sister fairies who are legion. And what is 
a Hindu fairy? 

With the hope of indicating by some 
faint suggestion at least the significance 
of the Swami to any woman or to any so- 
ciety that he may approach, an effort will 
be made here to portray this cup-bearer 
of the Vedanta philosophy as he affects the 
womanhood of India. One of the impor- 
tant duties of the ancient priests of the 
Vedas was to ladle out the soma drink for 
the worshipers. What that soma drink be- 
tokened is matter of some doubt among 
scholars. But there at the gateway of In- 
dia’s religious experience stands that soma 
bowl itself as the mysterious symbol of 
that never-dying, stupefying control which 
the priest has held over Hindu life. The 
soma drink which the Hindu priests to-day 
put to the lips of the people of India can 
not be pictured, perhaps, better in brief 
271 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


compass than by a parable drawn from the 
womanhood of India. 

In India when a girl arrives at the age 
of sixteen without being married it is felt 
that she is getting old. Her relatives are 
anxious to have her married. If there is 
no man in the family, the mother orders 
the oldest woman in the house to make a 
“Fairy.” This Fairy is a little cloth doll, 
fashioned to represent a woman, but a 
woman without hands, feet, eyes, nose, or 
ears — with only a mouth. This is to show 
the helplessness of the girl. It is as if to 
say, “Without a husband, the girl is as 
helpless as this rag doll.” The old woman, 
through neighbors and friends, discovers 
somewhere in the community a man who 
needs a wife. To this man’s house she 
takes the Fairy, and, without many words, 
shows it to him. The man understands. 
He applies for the proffered bride and, of 
course, is accepted. How deep, often, is the 
grief of a girl when she realizes that, for 
her, “the Fairy is going round!” The 
Fairy is intended to represent the helpless- 
ness of a Hindu woman without a husband, 
272 


CUP BEARERS. 


In reality, it pictures her moral and spir- 
itual hopelessness, her utter life abandon- 
ment. Like the Fairy, the Hindu woman is 
without hands, feet, eyes, nose, or ears. 
What more natural than that she, dumbly, 
should trust in Hinduism, with its hallowed 
caste marriage as her only refuge. 

But how pitiable her mistake! Rooted 
in what dishonor does her honor stand? 
What faith unfaithful would she seek to 
keep her falsely true! Hindusim can offer 
the Hindu woman nothing which can help 
her! The natural life-environment of India 
forbids a high, pure womanhood. In one 
of the cities of Southern India not long ago 
I visited a high caste school for girls. Our 
attention was called to a child of five in 
gay attire, who already was a wife. I spoke 
to her. Proudly but shyly the little one 
drew out the cord hidden at her neck — the 
cord which is the Brahmin symbol of wife- 
hood. Her husband was a young man of 
eighteen or twenty. Every morning he 
gave her money to buy candy, and sent her 
to school. If her husband lived, this child- 
wife soon would enter upon a life of Purdah , 

is 273 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


or seclusion, in the zenana. Here, with re- 
stricted education and interests, she would 
pass a life of vanity and vacuity. But if, 
during the next few years her husband 
should die, this little girl, instead of grow- 
ing up to fill even this purposeless role in 
life, would become a child-widow. Chun- 
dra Lela, the Nepalese Priestess, has at- 
tempted to tell us something of the sadness 
and sin which Hinduism reserves for its 
child-widows. But no words can portray 
the wretchedness of this Avernus of Hindu 
life. It does not avail to remind us that 
“deep down in the heart of every Hindu 
lies an almost passionate devotion to the 
Great Mother of all.” It does not change 
the essential facts to be told that, with 
Hindus, “sex is ephemeral. For life to the 
husband is incomplete without the wife. 
He can not even say his prayers purely 
without her; the tie between them is indis- 
soluble.” It is true that “for one prayer 
which is put up to a god in India there are 
about a thousand to a goddess. All the 
local deities are female.” But the truth re- 
mains that both the Institutes of Manu 
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CUP BEARERS. 


and also the Mahabarata give the most re- 
volting rules concerning the slavish sub- 
mission of married women to their hus- 
bands. And the abysmal fate of the 
wretched child-widows it was — a fate that 
still to-day annually is engulfing millions — 
that moved Pundita Ramabai to organize 
her Christian rescue enterprise, which to 
so many broken hearts in Shiva’s land has 
proven the one friend of outraged woman- 
hood. Hinduism itself does not deign even 
to suggest any succor except that of the 
Suttee, or Widow Burning. But, as the 
Sikh Scriptures say, 

“ They are not Suttees who perish in the flames, 
O Nanak! 

Suttees are those who live with a broken heart.” 

No hope is offered to the women of 
India through the provisions of caste. What- 
ever may be its boasted benefits, such as 
division of labor, personal protection, and 
cleanliness, caste confessedly offers nothing 
to women distinctively. Caste was not 
made for women. It has no ethical basis. 
It wastes no words on man’s duty to God. 

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THE CUP OF FIRE. 

Its vital point is not conduct, but mar- 
riage. Its evangel is not righteousness, but 
food. Its Bible is no Book of the Stars. 
It is the Magna Charta of servitude, writ- 
ten by a superstitious tradition. Its creed 
is caste. As to the effect that this creed of 
caste has had on female education, we need 
only quote from one who is ultra favorable 
in her opinion concerning the present posi- 
tion of Hindu women. “Female education 
is doubtless doing something to dissipate 
the almost inconceivable ignorance of the 
Indian mother,” says Mrs. Flora Annie 
Steel, “but it must be remembered that 
such education gauged at its highest — 
and how bad these so-called girls’ schools 
can be, I as inspector know to my cost — 
only touches four per cent of the total 
female population.” Left to itself in 
dealing with woman’s training, caste 
brought about a paralysis of the educa- 
tional conscience. “You might as well at- 
tempt,” said Dr. Duff, “to lift the loftiest 
peak of the Himalayas and throw it into 
the Bay of Bengal, as to attempt female 
276 


CUP BEARERS. 


education in India.” Caste is intended to 
keep the Hindu woman in perpetual child- 
hood. It aims to crush her individual 
liberty in the most sacred things of woman- 
hood. It involves her in social practices 
which would merit only ridicule did they 
not lead to such suffering. As an illustra- 
tion of this, at Delhi we had a Brahmin 
guide. The fourteen-year-old son of this 
Brahmin had been married with the ac- 
companiment of a caste feast which had 
ruined the whole family of the Brahmin. 
The Brahmin was himself thin, pale, and 
trembling. His family was famishing. He 
was eager for the filthy copper coins which 
we were to pay him. But as a high caste 
Brahmin, he refused at our hands a good 
supply of excellent food. Under the shadow 
of a pillar he sat down, rubbing his empty 
stomach. There he glared at a little out- 
caste boy, who, pouncing upon the rejected 
food, spread himself in the sun before Mr. 
Brahmin, like Dives before Lazarus. The 
lad, though fearful of the Brahmin, gorged 
himself on that luncheon, the like of which 

m 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


his Pariah palate never had tasted. No. 
There is no hope for anything or anybody 
in caste. 

The religions of India can not help the 
Hindu woman. They have made her spir- 
itual outlook “a tangled jungle of disorderly 
superstitions, a troubled sea without shore 
or visible horizon, driven to and fro by the 
winds of boundless credulity and grotesque 
inventions.” We brought home with us 
from India many emblems of the Hindu 
faith. Some of these emblems of idolatry 
have sad stories indeed. They reveal only 
too clearly how hopeless the Hindu woman 
must be before a system which is based 
upon the desecration of her womanhood. 
One picture idol in my possession is pa- 
thetic. It is that of the god Runchord, 
whose chief temple is not far from Baroda. 
There is a romantic story concerning this 
god and this temple. But the real signifi- 
cance of the god is that to his temple an- 
nually are brought multitudes of young 
girls, who there, under the guise of re- 
ligion, begin that life unspeakable, which 
is at once the crime and the curse of India. 

278 


CUP BEARERS. 


The four most sacred shrines of Hindu- 
ism are the temples of Jaggannath, Rama- 
nath, Dwarakanath, and Badrinath. The 
revolting practices which mark the worship 
at these fanes are the scandal of the world. 
But the evil which thus, like the night, 
cloaks these four temples, is not confined 
to them. Much of the religiously ordered 
conduct of the people throughout the land 
is ethically pernicious. Common sense in- 
sists upon applying its own test. No social 
economy that in one provincial town like 
Gujurati Surat will create over two thousand 
different inter-warring castes ; no ethical sys- 
tem whose sage is a Vivekananda or any of 
his ilk; no body of faith whose fairest 
flower is the fakir; no redemptive process 
whose high priestess is the Nautch Girl — 
can have any message of uplift. Whatever 
may have been the past, the future of India 
is not with the Brahmin. No. The future 
of India is with the man at the well and the 
man at the plow. 

All this, we concede, may be set down 
as the hasty judgment of an uninitiated 
observer. We do not profess to be versed 
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in Swami mysteries, certainly not in those 
of the Bhakti stage. But to strengthen the 
judgment come, uninvited, certain mem- 
ories of Benares. Again rises the temple 
of Madura — sad, tumultuous, depressing. 
There are the tanks with green, scum- 
covered water, in which, up to their arm- 
pits, stand penitents reciting prayers; there 
are the gloomy corridors through which 
lurch sacred elephants adorned with gaudy 
paint and hung with clanging bells. There 
pose voluptuous dancers resembling bats 
which the Bengali define as “featherless 
birds given to grazing at night;” thin- 
shanked temple musicians, with discordant 
clamor escort worshipers bearing flowers 
and melted butter to be lavished on mon- 
strosities of brass and mud; fetid odors lade 
the air with disease. In the shadows lurk 
ash-covered fakirs and holy-faced fat men 
lying in wait for innocent young girls. All 
around teems a chaos of pilgrims, dawdlers, 
traders, a world of fraud, deceit, supersti- 
tion, lechery. Beyond Madura the two 
temples of Sri Rangam and Jambukeshwar 
rear their picturesque bulk and unashamed 
280 


CUP BEARERS. 


heathenism — a veritable tiger-lair of sanc- 
tified sons of Belial. Here the young 
priestesses of vice are crowned with flowers. 
The awesome gateways and multiplied 
shrines have the charm of sweet palm 
groves and flowing waters to make glad the 
place. The clothing of the idols worshiped 
is worth a million dollars ! But all this only 
seems to heighten the dejection of the 
wretches who, in hopeless squalor and 
abysmal want, supply the background which 
Reginald Heber noted in his verse referring 
to just such conditions as those surround- 
ing these two temples — 

“ Where every prospect pleases 
And only man is vile.” 

Yes, doubtless, it is all a matter of 
opinion and of hasty judgment. None the 
less we must decline to grant the claim of 
holiness or even of cleanness to the ethnic 
faith of India. As to the thought that the 
Swami, “god-man,” the professional expert 
in such moral misery, comes bearing any 
exalted or godly message for the woman- 
hood of America — let the Swami be referred 
281 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


himself for enlightenment to the guardians 
of public morality and decency. 

In the land where woman thus cruelly 
has been degraded, the most poetically 
charming and exquisitely conceived build- 
ing of the whole country is a mausoleum of 
a woman. It has been said that this Taj 
Mahal, in its peerless beauty, stands, seem- 
ingly, as “a promise of the glorious posi- 
tion which the daughters of India yet shall 
occupy in their homes and civilization.” 
But not easily will this promise come to 
pass. The Swamis have done their work 
thoroughly. The modern soma drink of 
Hinduism is a veritable draught of enchant- 
ment. To bring the timid, esoteric nature 
of the Hindu woman out from under its 
influence will call for gentleness and in- 
finite tact. There are, however, three chan- 
nels through which the light from the cross 
is streaming in to quicken the moribund. 
One channel is that of zenana visitation. 
Across five seas, at this hour, I seem to hear 
the sound of that drum which was being 
beaten so softly and mysteriously as we 
entered the women’s apartments of that 
282 


CUP BEARERS. 


first Hindu home, whose threshold I crossed 
as a priest. The sacred drum was calling 
the attention of Ganesh, the god of that 
household, to the petition of the worshiper 
who lay prostrate before him, beneath his 
god-shelf. Poor woman! How many un- 
happy slaves of Ganesh and Shiva thus in 
their sorrow at this very hour are lying 
with their tear- wet faces in the dust! To 
the monotonous accompaniment of the 
sacred drum they are sending up pitiful 
prayers. Here could be asked the question, 
“Does not God hear an honest petition, 
even if it is misdirected through blameless 
ignorance?” Confucius maintained that 
“all worship being intended for the true 
God, however addressed, reaches and is 
accepted by Him.” 

In one zenana we found a young mother 
who, compassed about by the most potent 
influences of heathenism, had won her 
children and her aged mother to join with 
her in reading the Bible, and in quiet, hid- 
den prayers and songs to Jesus. In an- 
other zenana, that of a rich and cultured 
Brahmin, a man of high political influence, 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 

we saw how zenana work penetrates the 
citadel of Hinduism. The wife of this 
Brahmin was a woman of striking beauty 
and presence. She was loaded with jewelry. 
In her nose-ring was a ruby which would 
have made the joy of any lover of precious 
gems. Her shapely, bare, brown feet as 
she walked set to ringing musically number- 
less tiny bells on her anklets and toe-rings. 
She was a Brahmin lady of the highest 
caste. Her home in every particular showed 
refinement, culture and caste pride. But 
this Purdah woman was a Christian. 
Sweetly she told us how her husband, al- 
though a Hindu, was proud of the fact that 
she was a Christian. In their home he 
granted her every liberty of worship. But, 
for social and political reasons, he asked of 
her not to let the fact of her Christian wor- 
ship be known outside in the city. Only 
those v/ho know India will understand how 
the barriers in that high-caste home had 
been broken down when it is stated that 
this gentle lady, at our parting, put flowers 
in our hands, timidly again called herself 
Christian, and then, after sprinkling us 
284 


CUP BEARERS. 


with rose-water, actually shook hands with 
us, though at this last proceeding, it must 
be confessed, the gentle Hindu convert was 
abashed. “In those darkened homes and 
rooms, with no eye but the eye of God upon 
it, that work of zenana visitation, quietly, 
silently is undermining the walls of heathen- 
ism. And when the foundations give way, 
it will be seen how great has been the work !” 

The second open door into the heart of 
India’s womanhood is the gate of child 
training. In India the relation of the 
Christian propaganda to the child is under- 
stood thoroughly. It is being worked out 
with wisdom. In a city of Southern India, 
through the experiences of one day, we saw 
illustrated the far-reaching possibilities of 
this Christian adoption of the Hindu child. 
Early in the morning of that day we vis- 
ited a high-caste mission school, in which 
the little daughters of Brahmins were being 
taught. Among these children, two bright 
girls of high caste, arrayed in silks and 
jewels, confessed to us that secretly they 
were Christians. They said that soon they 
would acknowledge Christ in their own 
285 


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homes. That same forenoon, driving past 
a burning ghat, where we saw the burning 
of a dead Hindu, we visited a village school 
in the outskirts of the city. Here, in a mud 
hut, crowded with children whose parents 
devoutly had followed the dead Hindu to 
his cremation, we heard Christian songs 
and prayers, and there were sincere Chris- 
tian testimonies from a score of the com- 
pany. In the afternoon we made a call at 
a girls’ orphanage. Here were a great 
assembly of famine children who were being 
trained up as Christians. Two demure, 
tiny maids, speaking the Tamil tongue, ex- 
ploited the catechism in an amazing an- 
tiphonal duet. The questions and answers 
flew back and forth with the rapidity of a 
weaver’s shuttle. 

The third entrance to the hearts of 
Hindu women has been gained through the 
medical mission. Some one has said that 
“the moment the medical missionary sets 
foot on his chosen field, he is master of the 
universal language, the unspoken tongue of 
the heart, and is welcomed to the homes of 
strangers. The simple Arab lifts to him 
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CUP BEARERS. 

the curtain of his goats’-hair tent and bids 
him enter. The mandarin calls him to his 
palace. The peasant begs him to come to 
his lonely cabin. The Brahmin leads him 
to the recesses of his zenana. Heal the 
bodily ailments of the heathen in the name 
of Christ, and you are sure, at least, that 
he will love you and bless you, and all that 
you say will have to him a meaning and a 
power not conveyed by other lips.” This 
certainly is true of the Hindu. Few Chris- 
tian agencies so surely are dowered with 
success as is the medical mission. Wiser 
in some particulars than are we, perhaps, 
is the heathenism which has made of woman- 
hood itself a sacred cult. Needless to say 
that women who are so abnormally sensi- 
tive in all personal matters as are the 
women of India must be approached in a 
way that shall win their womanhood at its 
vital point. The Lai Puji feast indicates 
what this vital point is. In Mandalay we 
saw a Lai Puji procession. Through this 
procession a certain caste of the city was 
proclaiming the fact that a number of the 
girls of that caste had reached marriageable 
287 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


age, and were about to go into a life of Pur- 
dah or caste seclusion. The whirling trian- 
gular Burmese gongs of the marchers were 
pleasant to hear. And the poor little 
“fairies,” without doubt, were as desirable as 
the loud advertising would seem to warrant. 
But, from a Western understanding of the 
situation, the emblems so jauntily displayed 
might have been changed to advantage. 
But the point of it all, of course, was the 
fact that here some young girls were about 
entering upon the duty of womanhood, and 
this was religion. The Swami, then, is only 
following the line of tradition when he turns 
to women as the chosen field for his occult 
teaching. But like the enchanted cup in 
the old story, the Swami’s soma draught, 
even in India, is losing its enchantment 
when the Christ is named. 

In a certain city of Hindu land a Mo- 
hammedan tomb has been converted into 
a deaconess home. Under the refectory 
pavement in this home the grave still is 
intact. The dome which was reared for 
a dead Mussulman echoes now to the foot- 
steps of toilers for the Christ. Such trans- 
288 


CUP BEARERS. 


formation is not profanation; it is fulfill- 
ment. It also is symbolical. India, the 
house of the dead, is awakening to a new 
life. Among 

“ . . . hearts that are broken with losses 
And weary with dragging the crosses 
Too heavy for mortals to bear,” 

angels of a consecrated womanhood have 
come to keep tryst with them that yearn 
for the new day. Everywhere are driving 
chariots of God. Along countless shining 
ways His star promises redemption to those 
who during millenniums have fed on Shiva’s 
bread of tears. 


19 


289 


CHAPTER IV. 


MYSTICS OF THE SACRED 
DRAGON. 

A rising sea betokened increasing near- 
ness to Ceylon. On the evening air there 
floated to us an aroma like incense from 
some unseen temple. Let no surly skep- 
tic scout this. I tell only what is true. 
The breezes from Ceylon’s isle are freighted, 
even far out at sea, with the unmistakable 
perfume of spices. And after the harsh 
tang of old Ocean, indescribable is the 
sweetness of this first wooing breath from 
the shores of a tropical land. 

The island itself now began to be seen. 
A full moon rode high among the brilliant 
southern stars. In this magical light things 
were not what they seemed. With its long 
log outrigger and bellying sail, the native 
catamaran which swept by us, lifting itself 
with a leap from wave to wave, appeared 
to be some strange sea-vulture racing a 
serpent over an abyss of phosphorescent 
290 


CUP BEARERS. 


fire. Those mountain peaks, half hidden 
in mist and cloud, were ghostly keepers of 
the sea whose heads were helmeted in 
heaven. Those meadow spaces sloping up 
toward the mountains were the bad lands 
of the fever demon cloaking themselves for 
concealment. That steady gleam of red 
yonder to the left was no harbor light. It 
was the angry eye of the demon himself 
lying in wait for new victims. 

Some things, however, we could distin- 
guish with clearness. We could see the 
coral reefs where mounds of surge sweeping 
up from the South Pole rolled themselves 
flat in a smother of dazzling silver. Beyond 
the breakers we could make out golden 
sands backed by palm trees. In the ivory 
moonlight the eye could trace the ex- 
quisite feathery outlines of the palms. 
What would be the glory of this wonder- 
land under the full morning sun! 

But as so often vanish the dreams of 
night, the morning found us anchored fast 
in the mud of Colombo Harbor. The usual 
harbor experience in the East, with its be- 
wildering mob of screaming, struggling, 

m 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


frenzied Orientals, soon brought us back 
to eastern earth, with all its sad and sin- 
ister suggestions. 

To an American, the city of Colombo is 
a revelation. From the Puritan viewpoint, 
the street scenes of the city are shocking. 
In view of the temperature, however, the 
Buddhist priests in their sad, yellow ca- 
nonicals hardly could be charged with im- 
proper dress. Some of the shop-keepers do 
wear, it is true, in addition to their tortoise- 
shell combs, short cotton jackets. But the 
rickshaw coolies, in running-gear, are clad 
only in handkerchiefs. And, aside from 
their silver ornaments, the native girls of 
Colombo wear little more than the coolies. 

But in other ways in this Singhalese city 
does one feel the full call of the East. 
Glaring European business blocks are 
framed in by gigantic tree-ferns and fra- 
grant cinnamon gardens. Christian 
churches are overtopped by the grotesque 
bulk of heathen temples. Human bipeds 
are the dray-horses. Passenger traffic is 
in springless carts, whisked along by tiny 
bullocks, which trot like equine thorough- 
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CUP BEARERS. 


breds. At every street corner one sees of- 
fered for sale the most appetizing fruits 
and native foods, which teem with typhoid 
bacilli. A day’s shopping is a terrible 
thing of noise, muck, and infinite chaffer- 
ing in the long bazaar. But in all, through 
all, and over all is the redemption of color, 
crude, “booming” color, as the impression- 
ists say; kaleidoscopic, indescribable color. 

This Colombo study in color finds ulti- 
mate expression in the local trade of the 
city. Every one deals in precious stones. 
Here is heaped the wealth of the Indies — 
jewels of glorious luster and painted backs, 
pearls from Ceylonese waters and other 
pearls not harvested from any sea. In- 
deed, the city itself has been declared to 
be a fulfillment of Scripture, “The stones 
of it are the place of sapphires and it hath 
dust of gold.” Is it because of this or is 
it on account of those stirring pirate stories 
concerning “The Great Ceylon Ruby,” that 
in Colombo one hears the unregenerate man 
say, “The ruby dealer knoweth the value 
of a Ceylon ruby; better a sapphire with a 
flaw in it than a pebble without one.” 

293 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


But in this city of revelation I found one 
key to many mysteries. I discovered it 
through an old sword picked up out of a 
heap of junk in a curio dealer’s shop. The 
dealer in antiquities who bore the proud 
title of “The Holder of the Greatest Cat’s- 
eye on Earth/’ took little interest in my 
armorial find. He simply said that it was 
an ancient Singhalese weapon of particu- 
larly poor steel, adding that I might have 
it “very inexpensive.” 

The narrow, curved blade of the sword, 
corroded and bent, certainly never had 
been tempered on Jeypore anvil. But the 
hilt of the weapon, w r ho could mistake it? 
It was the inimitable bronze leogryph 
dipped in silver, the true counterpart to 
those historic Kandyan sword-hilts so prized 
and cherished in the national museum of 
Ceylon. Close examination showed that 
there could be no doubt in the matter. I 
held in my hand one of the famous dragon 
swords of old Ceylon. 

This island of the Singhalese once had 
been great and powerful. Around its 
Kandyan kings a circle of warriors bear- 
294 


CUP BEARERS. 


ing swords just like the one before me had 
upheld for centuries a far-famed national 
throne. These warriors of the dragon 
sword had molded their kingdom after their 
own pattern. Not until internal treason 
had unlocked their citadel could all the 
power of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the 
French, the English combine to overthrow 
the labor of their hands. History tells of 
a grand monarch of this Kandyan line, 
known as Don John, who had treaties with 
all the world. The magnificence of his im- 
perial establishment filled with amazement 
all who beheld it. That cosmopolitan 
Dutchman, Admiral Spilbergen, who on a 
mission from the Prince of Orange, visited 
the Kandyan court, wrote a description of 
his visit. “The Singhalese emperor,” he 
says, “sent his own palanquin covered with 
cloth of gold for his conveyance with ele- 
phants for his attendants, while parties of 
natives laden with fruit and wine scarcely 
inferior to that of Portugal lined the 
road.” 

But back of Don John of Kandy there 
were other monarchs of still older royal 
29 5 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


lines in Ceylon for whom this dragon on 
the sword had a meaning. There was the 
conqueror Bahu, who ravaged India; and 
there was Sena, the literary king, who 
compiled a chronicle still to be seen and 
read; and there was a great building ruler, 
Mahanama, whose chief city was described 
by a Chinese visitor in the fifth century as 
being of colossal proportions and fabulous 
splendor. 

And yet still back of these went the 
meaning of that dragon sword-hilt. For 
the fantastic, rampant creature thus repre- 
sented was really of mystical meaning. At 
heart it possessed a profound spiritual 
significance. Just as the cross-shaped hilts 
of the swords of the Crusaders stood for 
the Christ, so this weird emblem of life, 
half lion, half griffin, on this sword of 
Ceylon, pointed to a savior of men. It 
was one of the signs royal of Sakya Muni, 
Buddha, the Lord of the World. 

The old Singhalese fighting men, being 
like the Tibetans, supersensitive Buddhists, 
used weapons about as do the followers of 
the Grand Lama to-day. The latter hold it 
296 


CUP BEARERS. 


a sin to slay any living thing. Only by 
religious sleight of hand is iron, an instru- 
ment of salvation, utilized by them for war. 
On swords of soft steel they set three jewels, 
two red stones and a turquoise, symbolic 
of the three great sins of the human heart 
— concupiscence, anger, ignorance. Then 
if, in self-defense, the Tibetan warriors 
needs must strike, they pray the while 
that any enemy slain by the jeweled steel 
may be born again as some other creature 
free from the great sins, at least of blood- 
marked humanity. So the Singhalese Bud- 
dhists of old time, giving scant heed to the 
temper of their weapons, rested hard on 
Buddhist scripture. They carved their 
sword-hilts after the image of the leogryph 
or beeloo, the fabled Buddhist dragon, that 
same blessed nightmare monster which 
guards the big Burmese pagoda at Ran- 
goon, and also all the little pagodas on the 
road to Mandalay. This dragon, sacred 
emblem of Buddhism, represents among 
other things warmth and light; and from 
these two, declare the enlightened, come all 
good things. 


297 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


But how mystical and far-reaching is 
this thought of the sacred dragon may be 
gathered from a vivid nature exposition of 
the idea as given by a Japanese Buddhist: 
“Hidden in the caverns of inaccessible 
mountains, or coiled in the unfathomed 
depths of the sea, this mystic creature 
bides his time. He rouses himself slowly. 
In the storm-clouds he unfolds himself. In 
the blackness of the seething whirlpools 
he washes his mane. In the fork of the 
lightning are his claws. In the bark of 
rain-swept trees begin to glisten his scales. 
In the hurricane which, scattering the 
withered leaves of the forest, quickens a 
new spring is heard his voice. Amid the 
battle of elements he sheds his crusted 
skin. Woe to him who dallies with the 
terrible one!” 

The sword which bears upon it the 
image of the holy leogryph, therefore, may 
open to its victim, say these Buddhists, the 
path to the garden of the deva-lokas. 
Through life’s red gates twain of blood and 
one last sleep, fathomless as the blue of 
heaven, he shall come to Nirvana’s warmth 
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CUP BEARERS. 

and light — 4 ‘the dewdrop slips into the 
shining sea.” 

But my dragon sword had more than 
this behind it. The weird, uncanny shape of 
its hilt was due not entirely to Buddhist im- 
agining and teaching. In part it was a 
relic and inheritance of yet older dreams 
and beliefs. It spoke of the aboriginal 
demon worship in the island of spices. This 
black fiend fear, as old as the world, had 
held the people of Ceylon under its spell 
for centuries before Gautama came. The 
new teacher had not attempted to drive 
this superstition out. He had sought rather 
to conquer it and to use it for his own 
needs. And so it came about that the land 
which grew to be the holy land of Gau- 
tama’s faith remained always a land of the 
foulest pagan devils. Gradually it became 
filled with shrines, images, and temples of 
Buddha, and yet this gentle teacher’s gospel 
of love and self-effacement was linked, as 
hilt is joined to blade, with limitless ig- 
norance and moral obliquity. Ceylon, so 
lovely that it seems an isle of unearthly 
pavilions, the Lotus Eater’s Land of the 
299 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


Afternoon, to which Ulysses came, is yet 
the native heath of the devil dancer. It is 
the seminary or breeding place of a devil 
spirit which all the missionary books and 
bells do not cast out. And there is no dearth 
of missionary labor at exorcism with the 
far-wandered sons of one Wesley at closest 
grapple with them that are devil-possessed. 

Is it, then, just because here in Ceylon 
this boasted Buddhist evangel of warmth 
and light casts some semblance and prom- 
ise of holiness over things utterly bestial 
that, after a century of Christian work and 
teaching in the land, we still must sing: 

“ What though the spicy breezes 
Blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle. 

Where every prospect pleases 
And only man is vile; 

In vain with lavish kindness 
The gifts of God are strewn. 

The heathen in his blindness 

Bows down to wood and stone?” 

But why tarry so long in Colombo? The 
voice of the island calls. It calls from the 
south, telling of picturesque ruins and 
temples and of a vegetation unsurpassed 
300 


CUP BEARERS. 


in loveliness by that of any other spot on 
earth. It calls from the east, picturing 
trackless wastes where rogue elephants lie 
in wait and where wild men make their 
lairs. It calls from the mountains, promis- 
ing the upland delights of Nuwara Eliya, 
where one can drink tea from one’s own 
planting, and can play golf in coolth (as 
Kipling has coined the word) oblivious to 
the fact that thermometer and barometer 
together, possibly, have gone mad on the 
steaming coast below. 

Whithersoever the voice calls, however, 
we must see Kandy, storied Kandy, the last 
royal capital of Ceylon. We must see it if 
only for the sake of its Temple of the 
Sacred Tooth. As to whose tooth it is, or 
how it arrived where it is, the heretical 
pilgrim may be puzzled. But for the faith- 
ful no shadow of a doubt! While for the 
fourth time, in this world-cycle, Lord Bud- 
dha was in the body, this molar was his. 
When the Lord of the World had no further 
use either for fourth body or for any frag- 
ment of the same, the tooth started on a 
religious tour. About 200 A. D., as the 
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unenlightened reckon time, to avoid the 
carnal violence of certain consecrated (by 
caste) Brahmins, the tooth came from 
somewhere in the north to Ceylon. It had 
the sentimental good taste to travel con- 
cealed in the tresses of an Indian princess. 
A branch of the bo-tree, under which Gau- 
tama sat on the day that he attained Bud- 
dhahood, long before had been brought over 
from India and planted at Anuradhapura, 
at that time the royal capital of Ceylon. 
Later had come a stray hair or two and 
then a collarbone, all from the same fourth 
body of the great Budh. Now that the 
tooth had arrived, Anuradhapura immedi- 
ately established within her gates a Monu - 
mentum ecclesice Buddisticce and assumed 
the proud title of The Sacred City of 
Ceylon. Monks flocked to the establish- 
ment. But quite as quickly did the mon- 
keys of the neighborhood recognize the 
practical advantages of such proceedings. 
What sweet shelter from the elements, 
what never-failing alms of rice and plan- 
tains from pious pilgrims to the shrine of 
the tooth and to the bo-tree! Never was 
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CUP BEARERS. 


there any falling off in the lower order of 
the bo-tree ministry. When we duly gave 
alms under the shade of the Anuradhapura 
tree-shrine, the windows of the sky seemed 
literally to open to us, pouring out mon- 
keys that there was not room enough to 
receive them. The tooth long since had 
journeyed on to Kandy. 

In Kandy itself it matters little that in 
the course of its wanderings the original 
molar has disappeared. It was pounded in 
a mortar, say some, and scattered over the 
sea by a conscientious archbishop of Goa, 
jealous for the souls of his see. But what 
matters it? When, in its uttermost faith, 
has the human heart ever needed the aid 
of material fact? Let the present tooth, 
suspended on its lotus of gold under seven 
priceless coverings, be actually what it re- 
sembles, a crocodile’s fang discolored by 
age; let its lineage be of as doubtful his- 
toricity as are the connecting links of the 
apostolic succession itself, yet the thing 
will serve. 

As we entered the Dalada Maligawa, or 
Palace of the Tooth, as the present resting- 
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place of the relic at Kandy is called, we 
found the outer precincts of the sanctuary 
in the possession of a host of saturnine, 
yellow-robed, holy men, who were supposed 
to be guarding the sacred spot. They were 
almost as numerous and as deeply im- 
mersed in duty as were the Russian officers 
in that famous cafS chantant at Port Arthur 
during the famous siege. At sight of us 
the faithful temple ministers, scenting bakh- 
shish, leaped to their conchs, their flageo- 
lets, and tom-toms. How those heathen 
did worship as we walked on through the 
corridor of Inferno. This rather startling 
appellation was the name, at least of the 
particular passageway through which we 
came. But what Inferno was meant we 
could not quite make out, since from the 
corridor frescoes, which were intended to 
describe the place, its torments appeared to 
be reserved exclusively for the daughters 
of Eve. 

Out of sight of the gate-keeping priests 
the music ceased. We now drew near to 
the temple treasury. This structure popu- 
larly is believed to enshrine the tooth. The 
304 


CUP BEARERS. 


building, set in the center of a court, re- 
sembles an antique safe-deposit vault cov- 
ered with burglar-proof bolts and locks. 
This is the sanctum sanctorum of the tem- 
ple. Facing it, sat numerous worshipers, 
silent and motionless. The occasional click 
of a prayer-bead in the hand of some 
devotee alone broke the stillness. In the 
silent company here gathered were pil- 
grims from India, Burma, Java, China, 
and Korea. Tibet was not without its 
contingent. Some of the worshipers were 
coolies without a cash. Others possessed 
their lakhs of rupees. One forlorn indi- 
vidual all shaven and shorn was pointed 
out to us as a prince. But all sat in hu- 
mility, silently meditating upon that beau- 
tiful prayer of the Buddhist creed which 
begins, Om mane padme hauni (O the jewel 
in the lotus! Amen. The great sun rises, 
the sunlight comes, the dewdrop slips into 
the shining sea). 

The solemn stillness of the place, the 
undeniable earnestness of the worshipers, 
the world-wide interests which they rep- 
resented, the fact that in a moral and spir- 
20 305 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


itual sense we were far from home, all 
combined to impress us. Some Bostonian 
Buddhists whom I know would have been 
transported into the Brahma-lokas (Bud- 
dhist higher heavens). As it was, I thought 
of the dragon on the sword with its prom- 
ised warmth and light, with its mystical 
offer of a fairer life chance. 

The mind was borne away to another 
scene, to the sacred altar-place in the Arra- 
kan Pagoda at Mandalay. The gold bronze 
figure of the great teacher which is there 
holds in its metal mask a miraculous like- 
ness to the Master, it is said, because Sakya 
Mouni himself aided in erecting the image. 
The obedient bronze, conscious of the touch 
divine, took the likeness of the Lord. From 
all the East come pilgrims to worship before 
that great bronze face, for is not He there 
in His own presence? And so now that 
scene rose before us as we had marked it 
last, on a feast day of the devout Burmans. 
The sacred chamber was filled with its own 
gloomy shadows, rendered more dismal by 
clouds of curling incense. The floor of the 
chamber seemed a pavement of stars. 

306 


CUP BEARERS. 


Everywhere were lighted candles placed in 
front of the image. Behind the candles was 
a silent circle of worshipers, kneeling and 
with bowed heads praying. 

What centuries had come and gone since 
first the cold marble of the floor had been 
decked with its stars to light up the great 
bronze face! And what generations had 
come and gone and what empires had risen 
and vanished since first that face had looked 
out from the darkness over the heads of 
bowed worshipers, gazing always with its 
half sad, unseeing eyes, its dreamy, in- 
scrutable smile? 

It is only when we are at the heart of 
the East itself among the worshipers who 
there pray for warmth and light before a 
face like this at Arrakan Pagoda, that we 
can understand the soul of a faith like that 
of Buddhism. One bearing the significant 
name of Sadakichi has sought to put this 
soul of the Buddhist faith into an apostrophe 
to Buddha, as he thus sits, dreaming away 
the centuries: “How peaceful life seems at 
the feet of the great tranquil figure; what 
happiness it must be to feel one’s self en- 
307 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


franchised, to be no longer conscious of the 
flight of life, of the incessant fall into the 
sad past, to conquer time as he has done 
whom centuries have left untouched. Ah, 
ye ancient ascetics, gentle dreamers, who 
sought in fashioning these idols centuries 
ago to weave a rainbow-colored veil over 
dark reality; . . . with what a smile of 

disdainful pity would you regard the West- 
ern race, these materialists. . . . You 

would make no attempt to enlighten them. 
You would leave them to their busy goings 
and comings, to their pride of action; and 
slowly, with half-closed eyes, you would 
return to your solitary dreams, to your 
tranquilizing contemplation of the motion- 
less and eternal.” 

Yes, this it was for which these rapt 
devotees before us were yearning and striv- 
ing. Might they attain their search ! Sym- 
pathetic in spite of our prejudices, we crept 
away repeating involuntarily, “The great 
sun rises, the sunlight comes, the dewdrop 
slips into the shining sea!” 

Kandy, however, is more than its temple. 
The picturesque monastic buildings and 
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CUP BEARERS. 


the homes of the natives, with their ro- 
mantic surroundings of lake and mountain, 
the winding forest paths and the vivid green 
paddy fields, the tea plantations, and the 
botanical garden of countless tropical mar- 
vels, make up a whole of indefinable charm. 
The lazy and insolent citizens of the town 
are not worthy of such a setting. But what 
is lost in the man of Kandy is found again 
in the Kandyan elephant. He, at least, 
measures up to his traditions. Stalking 
along with noiseless feet, but with bells 
melodious clanging at his side, his mere 
bulk, backed by that sinuous inquisitive 
trunk, clearing everything from before him, 
the Kandyan elephant surely is the poet’s 
“serpent - handed, huge, earth - shaking 
beast.” One of the sights of Ceylon is these 
monsters of the still semi-barbaric old cap- 
ital sporting like water-dogs in the lovely 
little river which a benevolent rajah has 
set apart as the elephant water preserve of 
Kandy. 

From Kandy the road leads naturally 
to Anuradhapura, the ancient metropolis of 
the island when Ceylon was in her glory. 

309 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 

The best approach to this “ buried city” is 
past the famous cliff carvings and rock 
temples of Sigiri and Dambulla. The latter 
spot is memorable from the fact that near 
it the sacred words of Buddha for the first 
time were put into writing. Leaving Dam- 
bulla the road, continuing north, plunges 
into a tangled wilderness, where every plant 
of earth seems to grow in rank profusion. 
This is, indeed, the jungle primeval. It is 
the haunt of Mowgli, of Rikkitikkitavi, of 
the wolf with the pack, and of all the other 
interesting jungle folk. As you pass along 
what appears to be so still and deserted, in 
reality is swarming with life. Over on yon- 
der wooded knoll a wild elephant, a great 
tusker, picket of his herd, stands with trunk 
up-lifted to trumpet alarm. That ghost- 
like gleam behind the cactus was a white 
peacock hurrying to his mate. These trees 
overhead hold each its sleeping monkey. 
That rustle as of a dried leaf being blown 
along by the wind is a cobra slinking away. 
It is not an ant-hill which is heaped up 
brown and dusty at the foot of the para 
tree before you, it is a live coiled snake. 

310 


CUP BEARERS. 


The reptile, however, has a loreal shield 
between eye and nose. Brush him aside, 
therefore; he will not harm you. But un- 
less you seek Nirvana, touch not that wild 
Amherstia tree so gaudy with its pendent 
red blossoms. Under the nearest blossom 
swings a krait. He is a tiny viper, as you 
see, but no thanatophidian of earth is more 
deadly in his stroke. Mark how the little 
hypocrite swings by his tail, head drooping, 
beady eyes quite shut as if asleep. Our 
friend is meditating, without doubt, upon 
that foul slander of the jungle song, “Go 
ye, play with the cobra, but ’ware of the 
krait.” 

So lies the way to Anuradhapura. The 
city itself is in ruins. It is well-nigh lost 
in the ocean of tropical green which has 
swept over it. Desolate are the palaces 
and towers. The royal garden, Mahamegha, 
once the wonder of the East, is now only 
a swamp with a broken tank bordered by 
a few fever-stricken huts. Is this the 
“warmth and light for evermore” promised 
by the dragon guardian of the city? We 
must not, however, belittle such a city’s 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 

history. Still to-day, as for two thousand 
years, pilgrims come down the sacred road 
of Anuradhapura to acquire merit by wor- 
shiping at her shrines. Still, even in its 
ruins, the city enshrines the most venerated 
symbols of the Buddhist religion. Of late 
the jungle is being cleared away from some 
of the more noted temples and altars. 
After centuries of concealment, the ancient 
monuments are emerging. The architec- 
tural remains thus laid bare are stupen- 
dous. In majesty of proportion the ruins 
only fall short of the ruins of ancient 
Egypt. “In importance they are but little 
inferior to Nineveh and Pompeii.” There, 
for example, is the sacred tank or reservoir 
of Miuneri, twenty miles in circumference, 
and a dagoba or pagoda of solid masonry, 
originally three hundred and sixteen and 
still two hundred and sixty-nine feet high. 
There is stone screen carving “designed as 
if by Titans, finished as if by jewelers.” 
There also can be numbered the sixteen 
hundred granite foundation pillars of the 
Brazen Palace, which rose nine stories and 
had nine hundred chambers for priests. 

312 


CUP BEARERS. 


Countless are the other ruins surrounding 
dagobas, which still are honored with gifts 
of flowers and colored flags. Some of the 
shrines are almost hidden under the mass 
of offerings. 

There is a Singhalese legend of a deer 
which, after saving a herd of its fellows 
across a river from pursuing huntsmen, 
was swept away itself by the flood. This 
deer, says the legend, was Buddha. His 
spirit still lingers in the valleys of Ceylon, 
and some day he will come again with sal- 
vation for all suffering creatures. I thought 
of this tradition one morning as we were 
climbing up to the ancient rock temple 
which marks the western limit of Anurad- 
hapura. We had come quietly. The place 
seemed deserted. But on coming out upon 
the summit of the sacred rock, we dis- 
covered a young woman bowed alone in 
prayer before the temple image of Buddha. 
The worshiper had heaped the blackened 
altar at Buddha’s feet with masses of white 
flowers. No curling incense, no tomtoming 
of priests was there, no clicking bead or 
tinkling bell — nothing but earth’s own blos- 
313 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


soms and a human heart full of human 
suffering. For as the young woman, at 
last made aware of our presence, arose and 
turned away we saw that her eyes were 
red-rimmed with weeping and that tears 
were still on her cheeks. 

Is this then, after all, the true meaning 
of the Buddhist dragon teaching? But the 
veil of Maya cast over us is hiding the 
truth from our hearts. Are the warmth 
and light of the great Sun yet to come 
to them who in sorrow wait beside the 
shining sea? Or is our own faith really 
larger than we know and we ourselves only 
failing to comprehend the universal riddle 
which lies at the heart of each individual 
sorrow? 

“Waft, waft, ye winds, His story, 

And you, ye waters, roll, 

Till, like a sea of glory, 

It spreads from pole to pole,” 

sang Reginald Heber, amending the original 
hymn from which we have quoted. Face 
to face with a deeper meaning in the words, 
“And other sheep I have, which are not 
314 


CUP BEARERS. 


of this fold; them also I must bring, and 
they shall hear My voice: and there shall 
be one fold and one shepherd,” must we 
yet again amend the hymn of our faith? 
Must we add to it still another stanza? 
Must we even learn to sing: 

“ My brother kneels (so saith Kabir) 

To stone and brass in heathen wise, 

But in my brother’s voice I hear 
My own unanswered agonies, 

His God is as his fates assign, 

His prayer is all the world’s, and mine?” 


315 
































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* 












PART IV. 


DRINKING THE CUP. 

“ But the color of it was like fire. And I took 
it , and drank; and when 1 had drunk of it, 
my heart uttered understanding , and wis- 
dom grew in my breast , for my spirit 
retained its memory” 


Love watcheth, and sleeping, slumbereth not. When weary 
it is not tired; when straitened it is not constrained; when fright- 
ened it is not disturbed; but like a vivid flame and a burning 
torch it mounteth upwards and securely passeth through all. 
Whosoever loveth knoweth the cry of this voice. — Of the Imita- 
tion of Christ. Thomas a Kempis. 

The Pilgrim they laid in a large upper chamber, whose window 
opened toward the sun-rising; the name of the chamber was 
Peace; where he slept till the break of day, and then he awoke 
and sang. — Pilgrim’s Progress, Chapter III. 

Now stares my gaze, dull, on the Healing-Cup; 

The holy Blood doth glow: 

Redemption’s rapture, goodly kind. 

Doth thrill abroad through every spirit: 

Redeemer! Saviour! Gracious Lord! 

How may I, sinner, pay my guilt? 

Oh! what a wonder-crowning joy! 

Ne’er shall it more be hid again: — 

Uncover the Grail, — open the shrine. 

— Parsifal, Act II, and End of Drama. 

Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? 

Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? 

If I ascend up into heaven. Thou art there; 

If I make my bed in Sheol, behold Thou art there; 

If I take the wings of the morning. 

And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 

Even there shall Thy hand lead me. 

And Thy right hand shall hold me. 

—The Psalms, 139: 7-10. R. V. 

Chorus . — There is atonement. Touch but Loxias’ altar. 

And he from bloody stain shall wash thee clean. 
Orestes . — Ye see them not. I see them. There! — Away! 

The hell-hounds hunt me; here I may not stay. 
Chorus. — Nay, but with blessing go. From fatal harm 

Guard thee the God whose eyes in love behold thee! 

dEschylus. Choephorae. Conclusion. 


CHAPTER I. 


SICK SOULS AND THE CRUCIFIX. 

On the northern edge of the Province of 
Quebec, not far from the borders of Ungay a, 
Labrador, there is a monastery. It stands 
on the banks of the Mistassini River, close 
to a romantic cataract. This “House of 
God,” as the monks call their retreat, is in 
the heart of a trackless wilderness. There 
are no roads leading to it. There is no civil- 
ized habitation between it and Hudson Bay. 
Two centuries and more ago this far north 
country was much better known than it is to- 
day. The adventurous Jesuit missionaries 
then made Lake Saint John their headquar- 
ters. They explored the whole region to its 
loneliest recesses. Algonquin tradition tells 
of a famous white chief, the fabled son of 
Sir Hendrik Hudson, who at that time, 
after the mysterious fate of his father, ruled 
as a wise king over this land. The wild 
valleys of the Mistassini and the Peribonca 
still vaguely recall his memory. Now, at 
319 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


the end of the nineteenth century, these 
regions again are almost unknown. Except 
to a few intrepid trappers, the whole 
country is simply a geographical blank. 

Some years ago a little company of 
Trappist monks, true to the spirit of their 
order, sought out a lonely spot in this 
northern wilderness for their home. Here, 
at least, they felt secure. As unmolested as 
the hermits of the twelfth century, they 
could flee from the world and the vain lusts 
thereof, while their voices could rise like a 
fountain in prayer. 

Twice before I had visited a Trappist 
monastery; once in the Austrian Tyrol, on 
a mountain peak above the clouds. When, 
therefore, by a happy chance, the rare 
privilege of visiting the monastery on the 
Mistassini River was offered me, I accepted 
it with profound interest. The journey it- 
self to the monastery was one to interest 
the most blase traveler. It had the fasci- 
nation, a part of the way at least, of an 
exploration through almost unknown wilds. 

We left the head of navigation on the 
Saguenay River and passed, at first, through 
320 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


a picturesque and primitive country of rug- 
ged hills and crystal rivers with shining, 
unsoiled sands. There the moose still bel- 
lows, the salmon leaps, and the caribou 
makes his home. Here and there, at distant 
intervals, we saw the rude hut of some 
Acadian guide or hunter, half-hidden in 
the shadows of the forest. Twice we passed 
an old, dilapidated Hudson Bay Company’s 
fortress. We reached the southern shore of 
Lake Saint John at the village of Roberval. 
There we could see in the distance the 
silvery clouds that hang forever like a veil 
above that wonderful gorge where the 
Ouiatchouan (Do-you-see-the-f alls-there ?) 
River empties its tempestuous life over a 
mountain wall into silence and cavernous 
gloom. Roberval is a straggling pioneer 
outpost, where only the French Canadian 
patois is spoken. It claims interest, how- 
ever, from the dreadful historical tragedy 
with which its name will be linked forever. 
Beyond Roberval “the sweet civilities of 
life” do not obtain. The village chapel, in 
which reservation squaws make shrill, plain- 
tive music, marks the vanishing point of 
21 321 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


the last thin fringe of northern settlements. 
On the opposite margin of the lake begins 
a gloomy and unbroken waste, which ends 
but with Hudson Bay and the ice fields of 
the Arctic Ocean. 

At Roberval we boarded a diminutive, 
wheezy, flat - bottomed river steamboat. 
Thus we crossed, leisurely, Lake St. John, 
that enchanting inland sea which the In- 
dians so poetically term e Haunt of the Ou- 
ananiche” (fresh-water salmon) . After sev- 
eral hours of puffing and wheezing, our 
quaking craft struggled over .a sand-bar into 
the mouth of the Mistassini River. With 
prow turned now toward the north star, we 
made our way slowly up the long and tor- 
tuous watercourse that seemed as still as 
“sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep.” 
As we passed along we saw no signs of life 
whatever, except an occasional Indian wig- 
wam, where a few squaws were picking blue- 
berries. Not even a hawk or wandering 
deer disturbed the lonely haunts of the gray, 
moss-hung woods. Surely this was “the 
forest primeval.” Here melancholy Cowper 
might have found his prayer realized: 

322 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


“0 for a lodge in some vast wilderness, 

Some boundless contiguity of shade, 

Where rumor of oppression and deceit 
Of unsuccessful or successful war, 

Might never reach me more.” 

Suddenly the distant roar of a waterfall 
began to fill the air. The sound increased 
as we advanced. Soon the air was tremu- 
lous with it. At last we turned a bend in 
the river and passed between two towering, 
rocky islands. There before us, upon the 
opposite bank, lay the monastery. Never 
shall I forget the weird beauty of that spot. 
Charles the Fifth’s cloister retreat at Yuste, 
in all its boasted charms, could not have 
been more lovely. Jeremiah himself would 
have been satisfied with this 4 ‘lodging place 
of wayfaring men in the wilderness.” On 
a point of land, beside a roaring, snow-white 
cataract, stood a small cluster of buildings 
walled in on three sides by steep and lofty 
river banks. From one of the buildings, 
as we drew near, there came the notes of 
a sweet-toned bell, evidently ringing for 
prayers. Crowning the hill above the mon- 
astery itself there stood a chapel. Beside the 
323 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


chapel a wooden cross lifted its arms against 
the sky. The deep-voiced roar of the cas- 
cade was ever in our ears. An inexpressible 
air of peacefulness and contentment brooded 
over the scene. 

The boat landed us a short distance be- 
low the monastery. The path to the build- 
ings wound through a swampy wood. Walk- 
ing through this, we came unexpectedly 
upon a Trappist lay brother, a tall and 
rather sepulchral-looking figure, clad in a 
robe of coarse brown which was tucked up 
around the waist. We stopped and asked 
the monk a question, but he did not reply. 
He simply smiled and bowed his head in 
silence. Then I remembered the Trappist 
vows of perpetual silence. We courteously 
saluted the smiling brother and passed on. 

The monastery itself was an unpreten- 
tious, barrack-like building close to the 
river’s edge. It was within reach of the 
mist and spray of the waterfall. At its 
door roared the headlong and desperate life 
of the cataract, through which the Mistas- 
sini River tore its way down from the 
wooded heights above. In the slowly 
324 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


swirling black pools below I saw more than 
one goodly salmon leap in his glory. 

A young monk met us at the monastery 
entrance. He was dressed in a white robe 
sweeping to his feet. At his waist he wore 
the huge rosary and crucifix of the Trappist 
order. The cloister brother smiled and wel- 
comed us in French. This, we found, was 
the language of the monastery. No English 
at all was spoken. The recluse informed us 
that he had been appointed guestmaster for 
that day. He, therefore, was free from the 
rule of silence. Could he not place himself 
at our service? I confess that the first 
thing of which I thought was the un- 
monastic subject of dinner. I had heard 
strange tales of how the monks were al- 
lowed to eat but once a day, and, even then, 
fared badly on stale bread and vegetables. 
We were famishing. The guestmaster read 
our eagerness in our eyes. He smiled be- 
nignantly and assured us that we need not 
fear. We should dine satisfactorily, and 
dinner would be ready shortly. Meanwhile, 
would I not like to inspect the monastery? 
Madam, however — with a thousand pardons 
325 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


— must not enter. It was contrary to the 
rules of the order. So again, for Eve’s sake, 
the door was shut. 

Following the monk I entered, leaving 
madam in the ante-room alone with a 
crucifix. We passed through a room or 
two, and then down a long corridor. We 
met several white-robed figures, but they 
were one and all as silent as the Sphinx. 
At the end of the corridor we entered a 
narrow passage and door, and then stood at 
once in the monastery chapel. A strange 
sight met our eyes. We were in the presence 
of the mystic heart of a Trappist monastery. 
Everything bespoke the rigid rubrics of La 
Trappe. The mediaeval-like scene was im- 
pressive beyond all words, when the outer 
surroundings of that “ House of God” were 
recalled. For one moment I caught my- 
self wondering whether this was not all 
some theatrical arrangement or trick set for 
worldly, profane eyes. This, however, I put 
from me at once as an unworthy and un- 
warranted suspicion. Who would question 
the sincerity of the sad and self -torturing 
Trappist brothers? 


326 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


The chapel was lighted dimly. One 
small lamp burned feebly from the ceiling, 
while a faint half-light struggled through 
the heavily curtained windows. At the 
further end of the chapel stood the high 
altar. Severe as this was, lacking all the 
rich and more sumptuous symbols of Roman 
worship, it produced, perhaps, even height- 
ened effect with its one blood-stained 
crucifix. 

In front of the altar, arranged in a semi- 
circle, were seventeen tall, straight-back 
armchairs of oak — a chair for each monk of 
the chapter. One thought instinctively of 
King Arthur and his knights of the Round 
Table. In those monastic thrones twice 
each day the assembled brothers chant the 
“Salve Regina,” the historic hymn of their 
order, and join in the solemn responses of 
the office. Four big and ancient black-letter 
copies of the Gospels rested on four lecterns 
within the semicircle of seats. All else was 
bare. There was a stillness, as of the tomb. 

In the half -darkness of the place we 
could make out dimly the figure of a monk, 
a gaunt and emaciated man in a long brown 
327 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


robe, with the cowl drawn down closely 
over his face. He was prostrate on the floor 
before the altar, lost in silent prayer. His 
hands were clasped in apparent agony, but 
no sound came from his lips. Thus, night 
and day before that altar, some one monk, 
covering his face with his cowl, prostrates 
himself to make intercession. As I gazed, 
that pitiful, motionless figure still prayed 
on, oblivious to the world. Somewhere off 
in the hidden recesses of the monastery there 
was the sound of a bell. Slowly there stole 
upon the ear the faint echoes of a distant, 
muffled chant, “Ave, Ave, Maria!” 

The guestmaster courteously conducted 
me to the superior of the monastery, 

Father , a portly man, of cordial, 

polished manners, who had come recently 
from the headquarters of his order in 
France. Then I was shown the narrow 
sleeping cells where the monks take their 
broken rest on hard boards, and each Fri- 
day, at midnight, worst the adversary by 
flagellating their own bare backs. I saw 
more than one whip that looked as if it 
might be stained with blood. Every ap- 
328 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


pointment of the place was of the simplest 
and most austere kind. In the room of the 
catechumens I saw two novitiates, both of 
whom, on seeing a stranger, turned their 
backs and hid their faces in the corners. 
What misfortune, or, possibly, mystery may 
have been theirs? As we went about, wher- 
ever we met a white-robed brother of shaven 
face and tonsured head, he, at our approach, 
simply bowed himself the lower over his 
monastic duty. Each plied only the more 
diligently his appointed task. No sound or 
even sign of recognition was exchanged. 
For them the long silence of the grave had 
begun. 

The guestmaster proved a most inter- 
esting companion. Evidently he enjoyed 
his loosened tongue. He entertained me 
with a full description of his order and its 
way of life. 

The active ideal of the Trappists is to 
be cultivators of the soil. That bright and 
fertile spot on the Mistassini proved that 
there, at least, the order holds firmly to its 
founder’s ideal. The monastery is sur- 
rounded by numerous stables, mills, and 
329 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


storehouses. The wilderness is beginning 
to blossom as the rose. 

The brotherhood of La Trappe, as all 
the world knows, is the strictest of the mo- 
nastic orders. Armand de Ranc6, the great 
reformer of this curious confraternity, or- 
dained that its members should abstain 
from flesh meat, eggs, and wine; that they 
should observe protracted fasts and engage 
in laborious manual occupations. They 
must pray eleven hours daily. They were, 
moreover, to preserve perpetual silence, 
except when they greeted each other on 
first meeting. Their salutation then was to 
be merely two Latin words, “Memento 
mori” (“Remember that thou shalt die”). 
Each monk was to spend some time each 
evening digging his own grave. His bed 
was to be a coffin filled with straw. Retir- 
ing to rest at seven, he was to rise at two. 
All communications between the monks 
were to be by sign. No monk is supposed 
to know anything about any other brother 
monk, not even his real name. Each bears 
a borrowed monastic cognomen. Even this, 
however, does not mark the monk’s last 
330 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


resting place. Each grave as it is made is 
leveled at once and soon vanishes. Who 
but a poet or a mediaeval chronicler could 
do justice to such an order? And yet my 
guestmaster of the Mistassini monastery 
assured me that, in all the essentials, these 
same time-honored regulations were ob- 
served in his monastery, even to the last 
letter. 

Fortunately, the good monks did not en- 
force their regulations as to food upon their 
guests. At their principal meal they them- 
selves eat but sparingly of a few vegetables 
and a little bread and cheese, while their 
drink is water. But they overwhelmed us 
with a bountiful repast of the most delicious 
food, everything being of their own labor, 
even to the wine which they placed beside 
us. In dining, the monks sit together in 
absolute silence at a table of rough boards, 
each having at his place a tin plate and cup 
and a wooden knife, fork, and spoon. All 
food is asked for by dumb signs, this sign 
meaning bread, and this cheese, and this 
potatoes. The father superior has a wooden 
mallet in one corner. With this mallet he 
331 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


gives signals of direction to the monks by 
beating on the wall. Both before and after 
the frugal repast, the monks in company 
chant a sad but beautiful hymn of thanks- 
giving, while one of the singers clangs the 
bell on top of the monastery by pulling a 
rope. 

When we left them, they sent us away 
attended by a guard of honor. For, as our 
boat was turning in the stream for the re- 
turn trip to Lake St. John, a white robe, 
pushing out in a skiff, hastily scrambled 
aboard. To our surprise, lo, our guest- 
master stood before us. 

As soon as we were well out of sight of 
the monastery the young monk made him- 
self thoroughly at home with us. On learn- 
ing that we were not of his faith, he grad- 
ually opened his heart to us. He told us 
many most interesting things concerning 
the inner life of his monastery. We soon 
perceived that he was thoroughly educated. 
Without question, he had come from a re- 
fined and cultured home. At first he hes- 
itated to reveal his real name. Finally he 
332 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


said, “My monastic title is Brother A , 

but, in reality, my name is .” 

Poor Brother A ! I still can see his 

melancholy figure now, as, in the gathering 
twilight, by the great lake shore, he bade 
us farewell. “I never shall see you again,” 
he said, “but — may I say friends? — fare- 
well!” 

In Quebec afterward I learned that the 
young monk, who was a nephew of Car- 
dinal , some years before had fled from 

that city, which was his home, because of 
an unfortunate love affair. Broken-hearted, 
he had taken refuge in the monastery of the 
Mistassini, there to hide his sorrows for- 
ever in the bosom of “Our Lady of the 
Snows.” 


333 


CHAPTER II. 


PRO NOBIS LACRIMiE CHRISTI. 

Not far from the city of Quebec stands the 
little French Canadian village of Lorette. 
It lies at the heart of the most romantic 
and historic part of Canada. If you go by 
carriage you will pass the wonderful natural 
steps and rapids of Montmorency. Here, 
long ago, a regiment of New England troops 
were put to flight by a herd of cows. This 
whole road once marked the intrenchment 
lines of Montcalm’s army in his defense of 
Quebec against the British under Wolfe. 

Lorette itself is the abode of the last of 
the Huron Indians. For a hundred years 
those tigers of the West, the Iroquois, had 
been tearing to pieces the more timid Huron 
nation. Stealing up Lake Champlain or the 
Ottawa River on the ice in the dead of 
winter, the Iroquois would pounce upon the 
wretched Hurons and slaughter them like 
sheep. At last, after nearly all the Hurons 
334 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


had been scalped except a few who had 
taken refuge in Quebec, the French gave 
the refugees Lorette as their home. The 
town, however, long since forfeited the right 
to the title of “ Indian.” The progenitors 
of the present mongrel crew who offer for 
sale bead-wrought bags and moccasins, or 
demand to shoot pennies with their bows 
and arrows, posing thus as the “Last of the 
Hurons” — mighty Indian braves of better 
days — the ancestors of this degenerate com- 
pany easily might have hailed from the 
boulevards of Paris or the bog-walks of 
Donegal. And yet Lorette certainly looks 
“Indian” enough in its unsavory untidiness 
and in “the irresponsible attitudes in which 
the shabby cabins lounge along the lanes 
that wander through the place.” But what 
little is left of “Lo, the poor Indian,” him- 
self is without question a hopeless wreck as 
he lingers and wastes at Lorette in incurable 
squalor and fathomless cunning. 

Still, say what you will, the magic spell 
of the place wakes its departed shades. 
The situation of the village provokes medi- 
tation. Yonder is the noble, blue harbor of 
335 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


the Saint Lawrence, where the navies of the 
world might lie. To the right stretch the 
laughing meadows of the Saint Charles, so 
often stained with blood. On the left one 
faintly discerns the sad isle of Orleans, and 
a rising pillar of mist which marks the 
Falls of Montmorency. Away off on the 
cloud line stand the sentinel-like melancholy 
heights of the Laurentian Mountains. To 
the lover of history, what a tangle of hero- 
ism and tragedy, of romance and chivalry, 
of high hopes and broken dreams envelops 
this spot. Hither came Jacques Cartier 
when he discovered the River Saint Law- 
rence. Here for a space rested La Salle on 
his way to open up the unknown West. 
Here Frontenac built a fort and Breboeuf 
the martyr preached. Here the vile and 
venal Bigot had a lodge for his Indian mis- 
tress. Here for generations the red men 
and French voyageurs together reared their 
tepees and, joining in hideous revels, danced 
the wild scalp-dance. 

As you wander through the quaint vil- 
lage all these figures seem to live again. 
“In strange romantic guise they rise upon 
336 


DRINKING THE CUP. 

us from their graves. Again their ghostly 
camp-fire seems to burn and the fitful light 
is cast around on lord and vassal and black- 
robed priest and Huron, brave in savage 
panoply. A boundless vision grows upon 
us.” Nor is this vision dispelled at once. 
For, as you turn aside into a more secluded 
corner of the little town, you see before 
you a small bare building of unmistakably 
ancient architecture. It is the chapel in 
which the Indians worship. The historic 
interest of the whole place instantly is 
deepened, for, as an accommodating young 
priest opens for you the sacristy, your eyes 
fall upon some of the richest ecclesiastical 
treasures on the Western continent. There 
is not a cathedral in all the land but what 
would be rich indeed in the possession of 
such aids to worship. There is a wonderful 
monstrance of pure gold and twelve altar 
figures of the apostles in solid silver. These 
were presented to the Indian settlement in 
former days by the Jesuit missionaries. 
There is an exquisitely wrought silver 
chalice given by King Louis XV. There 
is even a silk altar-cloth and several priestly 
337 


22 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


vestments of amazing delicacy and beauty, 
worked by the hands of Queen Marie An- 
toinette. That was in those earlier, happy 
days of the young queen’s court, those hal- 
cyon days which Saint-Amand so vividly 
has pictured. That was when as yet 
around the queen’s tabouret there was still 
unbroken a circle of intimate girl friends 
and matchless beauties, de Lamballe, de 
Polignac, de Chalons, de Guemenee, who 
never dreamed of la lanterne , sans culotte , 
or guillotine . They, in common with all 
other satellites of the dazzling Bourbon sun, 
were thinking only of the majesty of a 
court which, while playing with European 
primacy as with a bauble, could win a new 
empire from the native children of the far 
West. 

The young ecclesiastic who had served 
as sacristan for us, and who proved to be a 
native of the place, invited us to his home. 
The house was one of the few in the vil- 
lage occupied by people of pure French de- 
scent. The young man’s family evidently 
was fairly prosperous and more than ordi- 
narily intelligent. The home was a corn- 
338 


DRINKING THE CUP. 

fortable country home, with not a few evi- 
dences of education and refinement. Soon 
we were being refreshed with some de- 
licious raspberry sherbet and listening with 
pleasure to our charming host, who was 
recounting some of the more interesting 
tales of the place. Suddenly my eye lighted 
upon a picture standing on the parlor 
mantelpiece. It was simply the picture of 
a face. But the face was so rare, so ex- 
quisitely beautiful, that I caught my breath. 
“Surely,” I said, “that can not be a real 
face. It is, I suppose, some ideal portrait. 
Titian might have painted it as his ‘Lady 
with the Flower.’ But I do not recall it. 
Of what picture is it a copy?” After a 
pause, the young man answered, “It is my 
sister.” Then he handed me another por- 
trait, which I had not seen, and said, “But 
here is her last picture.” I looked, and it 
was the same heavenly face, but, lo, a nun. 
Now it might have been Correggio’s “Mater 
Dolorosa” herself. I could not restrain my- 
self. “O how cruel, how wicked!” I said; 
“ such a beautiful girl ! ” Again, after a long 
and painful silence, the brother sadly but 
339 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 

piously replied, “Belle pour le bon Dieu.” 
“ 0, but what a shame ! ” I exclaimed. “And 
had your mother other daughters?” “No, 
she was the only daughter, my only sister.” 
Silently I glanced around the room. Here 
and there I saw dainty little works unmis- 
takably from a girl’s deft hand. The young 
priest handed me a wreath of most ex- 
traordinary hairwork and some lace fine 
as cobweb and a fragile piece of shellwork. 
“She sent these from the convent,” he said, 
“but we miss her singing. She was a won- 
derful singer.” Still that face of the nun 
looked down at us, as out of the heart of 
some dark, impenetrable mystery. I could 
not resist asking, “Does not your mother 
miss her, an only daughter?” This time, 
priest as he was, a shadow fell on his face 
as he answered, “Yes, mother is growing 
old, and often she cries herself to sleep for 

M . But it is not right, it is not right. 

Perhaps some day she will be comforted.” 
“But can your mother never see her?” I 
asked. The young man only shook his 
head as he replied, “0 no, it is a cloister 
order — never, never!” 

340 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


In the village I heard some wild, inco- 
herent gossip about the matter. It was 
talk about a priest some years before, 
about a sudden, inexplicable accession of 
religious and spiritual intensity upon the 
part of the young maiden devotee. It was 
wild talk. But I gathered the fact that 
after the young girl suddenly and myste- 
riously had taken the veil she had entered 
a convent at Roberval, that last far north- 
ern settlement on the shore of Lake Saint 
John, the very settlement toward which we 
then were making our way. 

Those who visit Paris to-day, if they 
have sympathy for human weakness and 
love linked with fidelity even to the pathos 
of death, more than once pay a visit to 
the cemetery where after life’s fitful 
fever now sleep well the lovers Abelard 
and Heloise. No spot more productive of 
moralizing can be found in all Paris than 
the gray spot of mother earth which thus 
commemorates the tragedy of those two 
souls. 

It was with something of the same emo- 
tion and sympathetic interest that, far up 
341 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


in the Northern forests which skirt the 
shores of Lake Saint John, I stood one day 
outside the convent in which I knew the 
Nun of Lorette to be. A procession of pil- 
grims was passing through the streets of 
the straggling settlement. I took my stand 
and waited. As the band of pilgrims came 
opposite the convent door, from the top- 
most story of the massive, gloomy nunnery 
— just for a moment — through a half -opened 
lattice in that mysterious retreat, two nuns 
looked out. Curiously they glanced down, 
and then instantly the lattice was shut. 
Again the vast building was a prison. Every 
door and window was barred. There was 
not a suggestion of life within. It was as a 
sealed sepulcher. I thought of the old bal- 
lad, “King John and the Abbess:” 

“King John and the Abbess Ana 
Walked in the garden one day, 

When he cunningly sought to prove her 
And all of her nuns in gray.” 

“Good mother,” said the king, “you are 
shut in here in solitude and peace. But 
tell me, do the waves of worldliness which 
342 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


break against the high convent wall send 
no dash of spray above its top? Are there 
no dreams of love or ambition that creep 
past all your convent guards and nest in 
these maiden hearts?”' 

“Just then high over the garden 
There flew to the wide free land 
A bird, and the Abbess Ana 

Followed its flight with her hand. 

“ ‘We can not hinder the passing 
Of the wild winged bird o’erhead, 

But well we can keep it from building 
Its nest in the garden,’ she said.” 

A foolish woman was the Abbess Ana. 
Not only can no walls shut the human 
heart away from thoughts which are born 
of its very humanity, but also is it true 
that out of no human being can the artifi- 
cial barrier of stone exclude the great heart 
and soul yearnings of society and life. Well 
does Jane Austen remark: 4 4 When a woman 
puts on a nun’s robes she does not cease 
to be a woman, and while with the one 
hand she flings her flask of essences and 
her pomander-box into the fire, with the 
343 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


other she plants a bed of pinks to flaunt 
their color and send up their spicy odors 
for her delight.” 

This certainly was true in that far con- 
vent of the North. For, though the build- 
ing resembled a mediaeval castle, dark and 
repellent, its walls inclosed the most beau- 
tiful and extensive gardens, where every 
flower that would bloom in that cold lati- 
tude was cultivated with the most loving 
thought and care. And there were ambition 
and life, as well, within those walls where 
no evidence of life met the eye. And there 
was passion and heartbreak. 

The sister of a fellow-traveler, by special 
dispensation, was permitted to be present 
in the chapel of the convent at the sing- 
ing of complines. She said that never 
would she forget the experience. In con- 
nection with the convent there was a school 
for young girls. While the candles on the 
altar of the convent chapel were being 
lighted the pupils of the school slowly filed 
in, chanting and singing in concert. The 
nuns were invisible behind a lattice at the 
side of the altar. After a prayer or two, the 
344 


DRINKING THE CUP. 

whole company, accompanied by the organ, 
began a hymn. It was one of those hymns 
of Palestrina, in which the angels seem to 
allow the echo of their voices to be heard 
in the harmony of mortal music. The 
chorus rose cadence by cadence, until you 
began to wonder where it would stop this 
side the gates of pearl. While yet you were 
awaiting the expected climax in the strain, 
the young girls began to file out, and the 
chorus began slowly to lessen. Gradu- 
ally the music waned, always retaining its 
haunting harmony, however; softly the 
volume of melody sank away until at last 
it was but one wonderful voice. This was 
the voice of a nun — “The voice of Sister 

M the old verger whispered to my 

friend. The nun sang alone, concealed be- 
hind the wooden grating. And as she sang 
it seemed as if the abject loneliness of her 
own life finally was finding expression, as if, 
having been smitten in her soul with a woe 
too deep for tears, there was left her noth- 
ing but song. It was a cry like that which 
Dante said he heard as Francesca da Rimini 
swept by him in the swirl of the nether 
345 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 

world. All the while that the music of the 
chorus had been dying away the lights on 
the altar, one by one, had been going out. 
And now, as at last the voice of the nun, 
in a note of almost unutterable pathos, 
grew still, there was darkness. The chapel 
was wrapped in gloom. 

Months had elapsed since my trip to the 
North country. I had not ceased to wonder 
and conjecture concerning the Nun of Lo- 
rette. The interest was too profound to 
allow me to forget her. One morning I 
read in the paper these words: 44 Convent 
of Our Lady of Lake Saint John Burned! 
Nuns Meet a Terrible Fate. Seven Nuns 
Burned to Death while Trying to Rescue 
the Girl Scholars.” Then followed the ac- 
count, dated at Roberval, Quebec: 4 4 The 
Convent of Our Lady of Lake Saint John, 
in charge of the Ursuline Sisters, a cloister 
order, and one of the oldest sisterhoods in 
Canada, was destroyed by fire at six o’clock 
in the morning. Seven nuns were burned 
to death. The convent and school are a 
mass of ruins. A spark from a candle near 
the cradle of the infant Jesus ignited the 
346 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


light draperies and ornamentations of the 
chapel, and the flames spread with great 
rapidity. Most of the nuns escaped. But 
the seven who perished, after rescuing some 
girl scholars, re-entered the building to as- 
certain if any one had been left behind, 
but in doing so they were overcome by the 
smoke and flames. Thus these seven again 
have attested the devotion and self-sacri- 
fice of this pious sisterhood. May their 
ashes rest in peace!” After this account 
followed the names of the seven. The last 

of the seven was Sister M L G , 

the Nun of Lorette. As I read the name I 
thought of a mother in a little Canadian 
town, of a mother who till now had found 
no comfort for her tears. And I wondered, 
Is it thus that our hearts are to be turned 
to the shining metropolis of God, where the 
stones of it' are the place of sapphires and 
it hath dust of gold? Is it thus that 

“Down through life’s dim cathedral 
The tide of music shall sweep, 

And through the shadowy arches 
The echoes of heaven shall creep?” 


347 


CHAPTER III 


THE SHEPHERD REVELATION 
“MY CUP RUNNETH OVER.” 

The most familiar representation of Jesus 
is a misconception. This misconception 
arose from a false view of Christian duty. 
It is the tradition of a thousand years. The 
symbol of the thought is the crucifix. 

During centuries the only Savior whom 
the world knew was the scapegoat of the 
world’s crimes. Early artists exploited this 
symbol of the crucifix with stark, rigid 
realism. This realism of the Byzantines 
thus put its ghastly mark on the centuries. 
The Christ of the crucifix was pictured 
crudely as a dismal, macerated monk. The 
symbolism lives on to-day. Still we see Him 
a sickly, repulsive devotee, dying at the Place 
of the Skull. From His brow light has van- 
ished. In His attitude there is no winsome- 
ness, only suffering, bigotry, fear. 

Of the early fathers, Jerome alone says 
348 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


of Jesus that in His appearance there 
was something starry. The others hold up 
to the world this thorn-crowned, blood- 
marked, forbidding sacrifice, claiming the 
groaning worship of mankind. 

But how wonderful the new births of 
the human spirit ! On the day that Michel- 
angelo died, February 18, 1564, Galileo was 
born. At the moment in which the world 
seemed drowned in a sea of horror, flowing 
from the Spanish Inquisition, with its sym- 
bol of the crucifix, there arose a man in the 
Spanish Netherlands who said: “Rather 
than that this tide shall overwhelm us, 
break down the dykes, give Holland back 
to ocean.” And at that word, like the 
fabled goddess rising out of the sea, and 
with her rosy footprints dimpling the world 
with joy, a new age was born. The hand- 
maidens of this new age were the new science 
heralded by Galileo and Bacon, the new 
liberty championed by William of Orange 
and bold Queen Bess, the new humanity 
sung by gentle Will Shakespeare and John 
Milton. 

From that new birth hour of the soul 
349 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


humanity has been struggling back to its 
birthright divine. The heavenly vision of 
the Son of God waxes more and more. But 
how shall we know Him? Where shall we 
find Him? Leap the gap of a thousand 
years, grope your way back into those cen- 
turies when 

“Faith had still its Olivet, 

And love its Galilee.” 

Enter the first Christian church, the Cata- 
combs. There you shall see Him. You 
shall see Him as they who knew Him first 
have left His image. 

We know not what may have been the 
appearance of the Son of Mary. We have 
no authentic portrait of Jesus. No Phidias 
was there to carve in breathing marble the 
figure that stood by Capernaum’s shore. 
No Apelles caught and limned on living 
canvas the face that looked out from the 
seven golden candlesticks. The first Chris- 
tians did not dare to image the Son of glory. 
Loving hearts were the sanctuary of that 
face. Only hints do we catch of a divine 
person under the symbolism of monogram, 
350 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


vine, fish, anchor, and lamb. Love sought 
no further until one believer, bolder than 
his fellows, carved on a wall in the Cata- 
combs that face and form looking out from 
the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John the 
divine. “I am the Good Shepherd; the 
Good Shepherd giveth His life for the 
sheep.” 

How such faith, born thus in the night, 
lifts every heart! “That great Shepherd of 
the sheep! See that graceful, loving Shep- 
herd Prince bounding down as if from His 
native uplands, with the happy sheep nest- 
ling on His shoulder.” Rejoicing souls find 
answer in a thrill of joyous youth, eternal 
growth, immortal grace and love. 

In the Imperial Museum at Constanti- 
nople, not far apart, stand two relics of the 
past. One is a marble sarcophagus. Of 
classic beauty, this marble was carved by 
masters who wrought the glory of Greek 
scuplture. Unscarred by the centuries 
through which it has slept beneath the 
Tyrian sands, wonderful in its plastic love- 
liness, yet how empty is this tomb ! Gazing 
upon it, you seem only to hear the scream 
351 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


of drowning horsemen or the clash of shield 
and spear, as the phalanx resistless marches 
to the conquest of the world. For it was in 
this sarcophagus, they tell us, that in his 
drunken glory they laid Alexander, mis- 
called the Great. 

Near this tomb in the museum of old 
Stamboul there stands a curious stone fig- 
ure. It is of quaint design. It is battered, 
squat, unsymmetrical. Untrained hands 
formed it. The casual eye scarce would 
deign to rest upon such a monument. And 
yet how full of meaning ! How unspeakably 
precious this rude monolith ! It is the 
earliest known carved representation of the 
Lord. It is an archaic sculpture brought 
from an early Christian tomb in Asia Minor. 
It shows an Oriental shepherd of grotesque 
but gentle mien. He is a toiler, a peasant. 
He is coarsely garbed and smiling. On his 
broad, bent shoulders rests a lamb. 

Matthew Arnold has introduced an in- 
teresting note into the discussion of the 
Shepherd representation of Jesus. In one 
of the most widely appreciated of his poems, 
the poet quotes the statement of “fierce 
352 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


Tertullian” concerning the Lord that “He 
saves the sheep, the goats He doth not 
save.” Then attention is called to the fact 
that in the Catacombs was found a repre- 
sentation of the Good Shepherd having on 
His shoulders, not a lamb, but a kid — 

“. . . But she sighed 

The Infant Church ! of love she felt the tide 

Stream on her from her Lord’s yet recent grave. 

% 

“And then she smiled; and in the catacombs, 

With eye suffused but heart inspired true, 

On those walls subterranean, where she hid 
Her head ’mid ignominy, death, and tombs, 

She her Good Shepherd’s hasty image drew, — 
And on His shoulders, not a lamb, a kid.” 

But whatever may have been the disagree- 
ment between “fierce Tertullian” and the 
apostle of sweetness and light, they have 
settled it long ere this. 

I am glad that those first Christians did 
not picture the Lord as a conqueror, who 
builded His throne on the tears and blood 
of humanity. He marched to conquest, 
but not with horses and chariots. He went 
with music, a shepherd song. I am glad 
23 353 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


that those first Christians did not accept 
the picture of Jesus as an archangel, though 
the Gospel according to Saint Peter, during 
its little vogue, thus portrayed the resur- 
rected King. I am glad that those first 
Christians did not set forth Jesus as a 
learned scholar, delving into books and mas- 
tering occult mysteries. In the prelude to 
Faust a great scholar is seen shutting him- 
self up in a cell on a mountain side, heeding 
not the voices, the songs, and the cries which 
come to him from below. But the end of 
that picture is the circle of fire at the heart 
of which stands Mephistopheles. O it is a 
pitiful tragedy ! How glad the world is that 
the Lord was pictured as none of these ! He 
is a Shepherd Prince, a smiling Peasant, 
a Shepherd-Savior. This vision so has 
ravished the heart of humanity that the 
thought has flowed over, so to speak, into 
the pagan consciousness, and in Ceylon they 
picture Lord Buddha as the Shepherd-Deer. 

The human heart itself is the basis for 
this appeal of the idea of the Good Shep- 
herd. That heart was not created to be 
cheated and mocked by its own lordliest 
354 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


hunger. No. It thrills with life; it longs 
for immortal life. And so 44 the figure which 
dominates the religious imagination of the 
world is not the dying but the living Christ, 
who brought life and immortality to light, 
and who came that men might have life 
more abundantly.” 

In considering the statue at Constanti- 
nople, now thought to be the oldest carved 
representation of the Savior, a learned 
writer has collected a quantity of interesting 
evidence on the whole subject. It will not 
be out of place to quote some of his more 
curious, yet instructive, facts. 44 Work of 
this character,” he says, 44 is extremely 
scarce. Only for a brief period could it have 
been permissible to make a statue of the 
Savior. In the Byzantine Church, which 
later developed in this region, it was for- 
bidden to make statuary of Christ or other 
sacred personages. It is possible that some 
of the pictures of the Savior in the Cata- 
combs at Rome are somewhat, though not 
considerably, older than this statue. There 
is also the Sacred Shroud, preserved at 
Turin, which is said to bear the Savior’s 
355 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


likeness, made by the impression of His 
own body.” 

After describing some of the pictured 
representations of Jesus, the writer goes on 
to say: “The question whether any of these 
pictures is an authentic likeness of the 
Savior has been much disputed. The late 
Canon Farrar held that the true likeness 
was lost. Sir Wyke Bayliss, an English 
artist, has compiled an ingenious argument 
that the traditional portrait of the Savior, 
followed by nearly all the great painters of 
the Middle Ages, is an actual likeness. This 
type shows a bearded face of long, delicate, 
oval form and regular features. Sir Wyke 
Bayliss contends that it is based on the 
portraits in the Catacombs. One of these 
portraits, that in the Catacomb of St. Cal- 
lixtus, he believes to have been made by 
an artist who had seen the Savior. Another 
of very early date is in the Catacomb of 
Pontianus. If this bearded type is a true 
likeness, then the shepherd statue can 
hardly be so. But the beardless type is also 
found among the portraits of the Savior in 
the Catacombs, and it is the type usually 
356 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


followed in the early pictures of the Eastern 
Church. It is possible that among the first 
Christians there were some who sought to 
make an authentic likeness of the Savior 
and others who preferred to create a type 
that best represented their idea of the divine 
appearance. 

“Again, it is probable that the early 
Christians during the times of persecution 
in Rome were afraid to place actual like- 
nesses where they might be seen by the 
authorities. They therefore used symbol in 
their art. Thus Christ subduing the hearts 
of men is typified in the form of Orpheus 
attracting the wild beasts with his lyre. 
Christ as a shepherd is represented by a 
youth carrying a lamb. The shepherd sym- 
bol was naturally a favorite one with the 
first Christians. The Savior was regarded 
as a shepherd by the humble and suffering 
people, who were the first to accept His 
teachings. In the passages in the Old 
Testament foreshadowing His coming, He 
is spoken of as a shepherd who will save the 
sheep from slaughter. It is a beautiful 
symbol, and one that appeals naturally to 
357 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


a simple people, who were largely following- 
pastoral and agricultural pursuits.” 

The best-loved book of the primitive 
Christians was an allegory of this same 
shepherd promise. The popular theology 
of the early Church wove itself around the 
doctrine of the Fair Shepherd. The first 
Christian hymn, so Clement of Alexandria 
in his third book tells us, was a paean to the 
Good Shepherd. Little wonder is it that 
as across the darkness of Sheol this radiance 
of the Fair Shepherd lies like a beam of the 
morning, there starts up out of the dark as 
if in challenge a rival monster of hate and 
the night. Zechariah calls this adversary 
“The Foolish Shepherd.” David names 
him “The Dark Shepherd,” whose fold is 
Sheol itself. 

In the Yosemite Valley, as the sun rises 
over Glacier Point, just before the luminary 
appears, suddenly from behind the rock pin- 
nacle dart golden rays of light. Around the 
granite height they fling a coronal of splen- 
dor. They are the promise of light behind 
the veil. As you look, through the clouds 
and blackness of vanishing night these 
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DRINKING THE CUP. 


wonder-rays leap straight upward, heralding 
the morning. These streaming banners of 
the dawn are what the Hebrews called 
Aijeleth Shahar, Hind of the Morning. 
The peasants of the Apennines long ago 
marked this same phenomenon. They 
called it Gloria. This Gloria was the earthly 
vision which led the early Christian artists 
of Italy to put a nimbus or halo of heavenly 
light around the head of the Lord. The 
Shepherd conception of Jesus is the Gloria 
of the gospel, for as Dante pictures it in his 
Rose of Paradise, here in trinal light of liv- 
ing glory glows the sacred heart of God. 

But this earliest carved image of the 
Lord has no nimbus, no Gloria. Here we 
see only the Shepherd, the loving Savior. 
This return to the basal elements of life, 
irradiated by promise divine, is that which 
perhaps makes all these rough human im- 
agings of Jesus so impressive. There are 
not a few basrelief, mosaic, and fresco rep- 
resentations of the Good Shepherd which 
have come down to us, say the scholars, 
from earliest Christian times. Among such 
is the well-known caricature of the Christ, 
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THE CUP OF FIRE. 

a pagan graffito , probably of the second 
century, which was found in the palace of 
the Caesars at Rome. One of the very 
earliest of these portrayals shows Jesus as 
Orpheus playing on his lyre. But “the 
number of free statues of early Christian 
origin is exceptionally small. Scarcely a 
half dozen of Christ have survived from the 
first centuries.” These all show Jesus as 
the Good Shepherd. Of them, two figures 
are preserved in the Lateran Museum. 
There is a third in the Church Museum of 
the College of Rome. A fourth is preserved 
in the Basilica of San Clemente. Still an- 
other small statuette of the Shepherd Christ 
was found in Seville, Spain. Without doubt, 
however, the oldest of all these statues, and 
the one therefore holding deepest signifi- 
cance, is the image which now so jealously 
is guarded in the Imperial Museum at Con- 
stantinople. None of the others is of a date 
earlier than the beginning of the fourth or 
the latter part of the third century. But 
the figure in the museum at Constantinople 
dates probably from the beginning of the 
360 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


third century. It even may have come 
from the latter part of the second century. 

To the end of his days, this Stamboul 
figure excited the profound interest and 
enthusiasm of the celebrated German ar- 
chaeologist, Ferdinand Piper. Well it might, 
were we to consider only the city where to- 
day it is enshrined. When, to borrow the 
famous figure, imperial Rome had shrunk 
to the papacy which was sitting like a ghost 
above its grave, Constantine’s city of the 
seven hills was the sacred spot where 
“Greece arose from the dead with the New 
Testament in her hands.” And though 
contending civilizations swirl around this 
ancient city, the mystic appeal of its place 
and its story holds the city itself inviolate. 
And ever at the heart of the city there 
stands, like a Prisoner of Hope, this image 
of the Christians’ Good Shepherd, hu- 
manity’s Prince of Peace. 

But back of this Good Shepherd con- 
ception of the Lord lies the deeper reality. 
And back to this reality of the Christ who 
shepherds the sheep and infolds the weak 
361 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


and brings again the lost, wayward wan- 
derers, back to this vision and experience 
of primitive Christianity the Church must 
return if it is to enter into its lost heritage 
of power. 

Near Capernaum one day we saw a 
shepherd, leading down his flock to drink 
on the Galilean shore. In the mountains 
all day the flock had been haunted by the 
presence of lions, kept at safe distance only 
by the shepherd and his dogs. On the way 
back to the valley robbers were seen. But 
now it is night. Watered and fed, the flock 
is safe within the fold. Not one sheep has 
been forgotten. Up to its mother tender 
and warm nestles each tiny lamb. There 
stands the shepherd with his club. The 
sleepless dogs prowl on the watch. The 
pallid moon rides to rule the peaceful scene. 
The shining, silent stars look down. Sleep 
on, little sheep, take your rest. No lion 
nor robber can enter here. “He that keep- 
eth thee will not slumber. He that keepeth 
thee shall neither slumber nor sleep.” 

Like recurrent chimes from cathedral 
bells out over life with its panting sheep, its 
362 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


waterless hills and lion-liaunted, thunder- 
riven mountains, its crowding care and night 
despair, out over the hopes and fears of all 
the years floats this tender, crooning caress 
of infinite Love, “He that keepeth thee will 
not slumber.” At the wooing of this celes- 
tial Love, hearts are comforted, peace steals 
in to sentinel the soul. “He that keepeth 
Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.” 
Here the tumult and the humiliation. Feed- 
ing the flock, dost thou feed on the bread 
of tears? Yonder the garden where He 
waits. And for thee His benison. When 
the Chief Shepherd shall appear ye shall 
receive a crown of glory that fadeth not 
away. 


363 


CHAPTER IV. 


“MORE THAN TWELVE LEGIONS 
OF ANGELS.” 

What, then, is the conclusion of the mat- 
ter? Is there some statement in which may 
be compacted the outcome of it all? Can 
there be expressed concretely the relation 
that each of us holds to the life of the 
Spirit? The claim made by Sir Oliver 
Lodge, in his address to the British Associ- 
ation for the Advancement of Science that 
personality persists beyond bodily death, 
with the implied thought that psychical 
research ought to have fair play, raises a 
query. Out of recent scientific investiga- 
tion one or two conclusions are emerging. 
One is the fact that our boundaries of 
knowledge are expanding beyond what can 
be defined scientifically. There also is an 
increasing acceptance of the intuitive source 
of knowledge as being valid. M. Bergson has 
cleared the way for this latter trend. We 
364 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


may not be willing to accept the contention 
of the mystic that our knowledge is “a 
dense obscurity which authorizes us to 
dream everything and forbids us to deny 
anything/’ None the less, thanks to the 
light gained through the teaching of James 
Ward and Rudolph Eucken, must we not 
believe that the “universe is a larger thing 
than we have any conception of?” Log- 
ically, therefore, can we rest secure until 
ultimately we rest in a spiritual interpreta- 
tion of the universe? Spiritually, we shall 
find no peace until we have entered into 
an active, personal participation in the pur- 
poses and onsweeping processes of the life 
of the Spirit. 

To make clear what is involved, a per- 
sonal experience may offer suggestion. Not 
long ago some Carib fishermen in the West 
Indies who had gone out to strip copper 
from a wrecked ship on the coral reefs near 
Kingston unexpectedly came upon an an- 
cient hulk lying whitening under the sea 
among the coral. Groping around the ribs 
of the long-drowned bark, the Caribs found 
wedges of gold and stores of ancient money. 

365 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 

Of the hoard thus rescued from the deep a 
friend secured for me while I was in Jamaica 
near the scene a generous coin which an- 
swers to the description of those double 
pieces of eight of Buccaneer story. Over 
the face of the gold are filmy coral tracings. 
Whence came this gold, what its story? 
The treasure was part of the store of a 
pirate ship. In the long ago the freebooter 
had been wrecked on Pedro’s Bank, south 
of the island of Jamaica. This Buccaneer 
had been a notorious scourge to the whole 
Spanish main. Tradition has it that on 
her last voyage the pirate ship, with blood- 
reddened decks, pursued by a Spanish man- 
of-war, was seeking to beat into Port Royal. 
Well might the evil fugitive crowd all sail, 
for, as her blood-bought loot, she held 
“ millions of pesos in her hold, silks and 
spices precious as gold.” As the marauder 
of the black flag neared her city of refuge 
there arose a dreadful tempest. The pirate 
swept in desperately through the Pedro 
coral reefs. Suddenly, in one smother of 
horror, the vessel struck and went down. 
The hellish curses and shriekings of her 
366 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


crew were her requiem. There, through the 
centuries since, she slept, one of 

. . a thousand fearful wrecks; 

Ten thousand men that fishes gnawed upon; 
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, 
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels. 

All scattered in the bottom of the sea.” 

Whose superscription is on this pirate 
gold? As if to add the last increment of 
weird suggestion, the piece of money is a 
coin of the reign of Ferdinand the Fourth 
of Castile. This Ferdinand is himself of as 
evil repute as the gold which bears his 
name. He reigned over Castile and Leon 
from 1295 to 1312. In history he is known 
as El Emplazado, The Summoned. The 
monarch had had a quarrel with two broth- 
ers, his subjects, Carvajal by name. Under 
some pretense concerning treason and the 
assassination of a courtier, the ruler had 
seized the opportunity to destroy the 
brothers. Before an unjust judgment bar 
they were charged with capital crime. They 
protested their innocence, but were con- 
demned. As the brothers were being led 
367 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


away to execution, they turned to the royal 
tyrant, and lifting accusing hands they 
swore that his should be the direr pun- 
ishment. They summoned the unjust king 
to meet them within thirty days at the 
judgment bar of God. On the morning of 
the fateful day the monarch was found lying 
on his bed with a face of horror, dead. 
History, therefore, calls Ferdinand the 
Fourth of Castile El Emplazado, The 
Summoned. 

Now the real lesson contained in this 
gold piece of such extraordinary story does 
not inhere in its reminder of Buccaneer 
doings. This side of the tale is picturesque 
enough. Virile figures are they which stalk 
through those old traditions “Of Schooners, 
Islands, and Maroons, and Buccaneers.” 
Little wonder that superstitious Caribs still 
whisper among themselves that, on certain 
nights when the West Indian hurricane 
drives its white horses through the sea, 
Henry Morgan is sailing again with the 
Jolly Roger apeak. Poets to-day, with 
their “singing seamen,” chant popular 
verses in which Kidd, Ringrose, and Anson, 
368 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


Pierre Legrand, and all the rest of the 
rogues redden southern main or scatter 
plunder in reckless play. But the real in- 
terest is not here. 

Nor may we treat the story of this 
Spanish doubloon as symbolizing a moral 
conclusion against present times. We are 
not to maintain that, as a seashell, mindful 
of its ancient depths, murmurs as the ocean 
murmurs there, so this piece of eight, with 
its red burden of memory, cries out about 
other pirate gold, which in all this new 
world is red with the blood of men — red 
gold for which fair cities have become 
hideous with grubbing, lying, sweating, 
cheating, and murder, red gold for which 
crafty, cruel hands under the black flag to- 
day seek to seize our treasure ship, loot it, 
and scuttle it on life’s high seas. No. 
However hot the heart may be against 
social wrongs, this is not the deeper lesson 
that the doubloon doth tell. 

The casting up of this blood-stained 
money from the deep, like the dead out of 
the sea in the Apocalypse, need not detain 
us with any lengthy reminder of how long 
24 369 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


sin is and of what brief portion is prosperity 
in sin. Moral reminders of this character 
meet us at every turn. A minister, called 
to address the prisoners at a State reform- 
atory where the inmates were wearing 
clothing of different colors to indicate the 
character of their offenses and their relative 
standing in the institution, found one pris- 
oner dying on his cot. He was a young man 
under an assumed name. The derelict in 
life was clothed in a complete suit of red, 
sign that he was incorrigible. The minister 
sought to turn the thoughts of the dying 
prisoner toward repentance, fresh hope, and 
a new start in life. The dying prisoner 
simply shook his head, turned his face 
despairingly to the wall, and muttered, 
“But I wear red! I wear red!” 

* We need not linger to emphasize the 
Nemesis that dogs the footsteps of the 
Tyrant. The casting down of high towers 
of wickedness is of the essence of life. The 
Buddhist Karma phrases that. Zophar the 
Naamathite comforted Job with the assur- 
ance that the triumphing of the wicked is 
short, though his head reach unto the 
clouds. 370 


DRINKING THE CUP. 

No. The heart of this story is not any 
tragedy of the blood-stained gold itself, nor 
the brief span of prosperous sin, nor the 
doom of the lawless monarch. The true 
center of interest here, the vital point of 
spiritual emphasis lies in the story of the 
two brothers Carvajal, the innocent suf- 
ferers who unjustly were condemned and 
paid the penalty with their sacrifice. The 
quick readjustment of the balance under 
the appeal to the judgment of God, as the 
story relates it, symbolizes a great assur- 
ance. It is an assurance into which we may 
enter, an assurance that, in defeat or dis- 
aster, when tyranically oppressed or in de- 
spair, we are not left comfortless or without 
appeal. The bar of divine justice, the 
transcendentalist reminds us, if for a mo- 
ment it be disturbed, settles inevitably to 
its place, and whatsoever seeks to delay its 
return, be it mote or star or man, is pulver- 
ized by the recoil. Here, then, in the vera- 
cious history of these two brothers Carva- 
jal, vouched for by Mariana and accepted 
by all other Spanish historians, we have a 
concrete human experience which, explain 
371 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


it in any way that you may desire, still is 
a gleaming illustration of how, when in our 
own life-environment we are overborne un- 
righteously, we can transfer our case to a 
higher court. 

This court of higher appeal is not heed- 
less. With not more reliance could the 
foundering ship Titanic or the flame-de- 
voured Volturno throw out wireless mes- 
sages to the invisible in search of help than 
we can summon the Infinite to hear our 
cry. For the life of the Spirit answers us. 
In supreme justice the Divine life pours in 
to possess the field. It crowds itself into our 
innocence. Our weakness is absorbed into 
its resistless might. Up against the cruel, 
dominating world it lifts us. It flings around 
us its own panoply of victory. “In the day 
when I cried, Thou answeredest me and 
strengthenedst me with strength in my 
soul.” 

But now mark the corollary of this 
spiritual experience. Through this readi- 
ness of God to answer us, we may ally our- 
selves with the life of the Spirit. Unless, 
indeed, we are allied with the life of the 
372 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


Spirit all our efforts will return empty, our 
life will possess no higher meaning at all. 
Richelieu, in simple garb, has been pictured 
in the ante-room of the French king. To 
Churchman and not to monarch are made 
the salutations and obeisances of courtiers 
and ambassadors. Richelieu exemplifies the 
high conquest that is possible through pure 
human will-power. The vision and possi- 
bilities of this conquest called forth from 
William James one of the noblest of his 
essays. But here we are concerned not 
with the victories of our own human will- 
power matched against unequal odds. Here 
we are dealing with the results of a union of 
our wills and lives with the all-conquering 
life of the Spirit. Through this alliance 
with the world of the Spirit we lay hand 
on other powers than our own. We are 
transported into another realm, where the 
first step is a flight. We are ourselves dy- 
namic because now the divine infills and 
possesses us. All our old accepted earth 
standards are reversed. We have the right 
perspective of the things of the Spirit. 

Those who have climbed the bridle-path 
373 


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up Mount Washington will recall that 
shortly before reaching the summit one 
comes to an irregular little sheet of water 
known as the Lake of the Clouds. This 
living spring, sheltered by the peaks around, 
lies a fleckless sapphire. No storms disturb 
its calm. In this placid mirror of water 
amid the clouds all reflections are reversed. 
Above the head rise the summits of Wash- 
ington and Monroe. On the glassy surface 
of the water the tiny crimson flower of the 
famished moss at the water’s edge is shown 
high above the peaks as the scene is re- 
flected. When we shall understand life at 
the last, there will be a readjustment of 
spiritual values. Here the peaks of earth 
tower stately and eternal. We strive to 
climb them. Seeking their glory, we beat out 
our hearts against their cold, pitiless crags. 
But such are not the purple mountains of 
God. These do not mark the borders of 
His empire of grace. On the contrary, in 
the unthralled life it will be seen that what 
here upon earth often is deemed lowest, 
there is exalted as a fadeless flower in His 
crown of amaranth. As has been said, here 
374 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


gold is on top, but in that true revelation of 
life as John saw it they use gold to pave 
the streets of the city. A right understand- 
ing of life, therefore, will make clear that 
spiritual wonder — they which receive abun- 
dance of grace, though ofttimes seeming so 
puny, frail, and despised, they shall reign 
in life. 

But through what process may this be? 
We have seen how through the Christ alone 
we have access to the Infinite. Now again 
is it found that only through the Son of 
God do we hold this secret of sure alliance 
with the life of the Spirit in all fullness of 
power. This union is attained with cer- 
titude only by our acceptance through 
Christ of the revealed will of the Father. 
In Gethsemane, when overtaken by the 
fate of which the mob and the soldiers rep- 
resented the foretaste, Jesus said, “The 
cup which My Father hath given Me, shall 
I not drink it?” An older account of this 
incident says, however, that when appre- 
hended in the garden, Jesus, turning to 
Peter, said, “Thinkest thou that I can not 
pray to My Father, and He shall presently 
375 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


give Me more than twelve legions of 
angels?” (Matthew 26:53.) This older 
account is presenting the Christ in His 
Messianic dignity. It also is revealing the 
truth that through the spiritual forces res- 
ident in Him, the Christ possesses resources 
above all those of earth or of the universe. 
Identified with the life of the Spirit, He is 
endowed with the inviolate might of its 
processes. Did He not choose, therefore, to 
lay down His life, who could cope with 
Him? 

The significance of all this to us is that 
this same spiritual experience is ours when 
once we have accepted the Christ and have 
entered into identity with Him, the dy- 
namic of Life and Power. Through our 
identity with Him the inviolate power of 
the Life of the Spirit is ours. More than 
twelve legions of angels await our call. For 
this cause is there unto us a central peace 
subsisting at the heart of endless agitation. 
Are there at the gate hirelings and mob 
bearing staves? It matters not. Beyond 
Gethsemane and Calvary gleams another 
realm, measureless and calm. This empire 
376 


DRINKING THE CUP. 

is waiting our summons to send its pano- 
plied hosts radiant, all-conquering. 

Because of this spiritual assurance, true 
idealists face disappointing or disastrous 
conditions with a sense of inner glow and 
security. Like adamant may be their out- 
ward appearing, inwardly they are a joyous 
fire. Near a certain New England village 
there is a family graveyard surrounded by 
an old fence of field stones piled one upon 
the other. By the opening of the fence there 
is a large rose quartz bowlder thrown care- 
lessly with the rest. “That rock,” said a 
passer-by one day, “is typical of the lives 
of the Puritan forefathers who sleep in that 
graveyard and in other graveyards like it 
— stone shot through by fire.” Yes, that 
is it — stone shot through by fire. On the 
sunny slope of Sleepy Hollow, in Concord, 
such a bowlder marks the grave of Ralph 
Waldo Emerson. 

The first idealist in humanly-recorded 
history, we are told, was Akhenaten. Ak- 
henaten was the Egyptian Pharaoh who 
built Tel el Amarna on the Nile, “brave 
soul, undauntedly facing the momentum of 
377 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


immemorial tradition and thereby stepping 
out from the long line of conventional and 
colorless Pharaohs that he might dissemi- 
nate ideas far beyond and above the ca- 
pacity of his age to understand.” But, as 
with so many other dreamers, the be- 
nighted environment of Akhenaten over- 
bore him and his dream. His dead body 
was hidden away in dishonor. His temple 
and his capital fell into heaps and were 
buried under the desert sands. But Akhen- 
aten had done his work in the light of his 
vision. And so one day the Tel el Amarna 
tablets were found, coming up out of the 
forgotten past with their radiant story. And 
now Egyptologists call Akhenaten “the 
world’s first idealist and the world’s first 
individual .” — ( Professor Breasted . Sketch 
of Akhenaten in his “ History of Egypt .”) 

Thus shall it be unto the last soul that 
by conscious effort allies itself with the life 
of the Spirit. The real wonder of the Christ 
story, its perennial life-giving joy and 
transforming power lie at this point. 
Through Him “strong Son of God, immortal 
Love,” whose face we have not seen, but 
378 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


whom by faith alone we embrace, “believing 
where we can not prove” — through Him we 
enter into union with the eternal on-pulsing 
life of the Spirit. So may we make its pur- 
poses and powers ours for evermore. This 
is the transcendent meaning of it all. Now 
culture and life become complete because 
they are God-filled. Suffering and sorrow 
have moral and divine significance. Defeat 
and disaster to noble effort are seen to be 
the reverse side of spiritual coronation. 
The heavens may melt with fervent heat, 
but the conquering Spirit will pulse on 
and on. 

Death itself no longer is felt to be the 
scarlet symbol of destruction before which 
the sinful soul exclaims in despair, “I wear 
red!” No. Death is seen to be that 
“morning redness” of spiritual promise 
which gives the life of the persecuted shoe- 
maker Boehme a fire-like impulse and made 
his passing a morning song. “When the 
hour of his departure was at hand, he called 
his son, Tobias, and asked him whether 
he heard the sweet, harmonious musick. 
He replied, No. Open, says he, the door, 
379 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


that you may the better hear it. And ask- 
ing what o’clock it was, he told him it was 
two. My time, says he, is not yet; three 
hours hence is my time. In the meanwhile 
he spoke these words, 0 thou strong God 
of Zebaoth, deliver me according to Thy 
will. Thou crucified Lord Jesus, have 
mercy on me, and take me into Thy King- 
dom. When six in the morning came, he 
took leave of his wife and son, blessed them, 
and said, Now I go hence into Paradise. 
And bidding his son turn him, he fetched a 
deep sigh and departed.” — (“The Life of 
Jacob Boehme in His Works as 'published by 
disciples of William Law. 99 ) 

In the light of such revelation we under- 
stand the admonition of the apostle that 
we are not to glory in men. For all things 
are ours; and we are Christ’s; and Christ is 
God’s. Here and now on earth among men, 
in the tame, dull, common round and task, 
we can live the Royal Life in the Kingdom 
of the Spirit. We can reign in life, by One, 
Jesus Christ. 

In Bombay, India, with interest is vis- 
ited the atish-bahram , or 44 temple of fire,” 
380 


DRINKING THE CUP. 


of the Parsis, or Fire- Worshipers. On the 
altar of the temple, with steady flame, 
burns the sacred fire, preserved, it is said, 
from the time of Zoroaster. The Parsi 
priests bend in adoration around the urns 
in which the celestial fire is kept burning 
day and night. To them the fire is the em- 
blem of their divinity, Ahura-Mazda. And 
there, symbol of the most ancient faith now 
upon earth, it shines like a star. All be- 
holders are moved at the spectacle. But 
how different the gift of fire at Pentecost! 
In the pagan temple the flame glows on the 
altar useless save as it serves to picture the 
presence of Mazda the Creator. But at 
Pentecost the fire rested upon the disciples 
themselves. In cloven tongues like as of 
fire it sat upon each of them. With its 
radiance and wonder it suffused and pos- 
sessed the believers. It gave them mirac- 
ulous utterance. With a sound as of a 
rushing, mighty wind, it filled all the house. 
It thrilled the city. It won multitudes to 
the faith. It fell on the infant Church as 
her divine heritage. 

The supreme zeal of the prophetic mis- 
381 


THE CUP OF FIRE. 


sion to this age will be holy fire, but fire 
that has seized and possessed human lives. 
The prophet for the age must be indeed like 
a crystal shot through by celestial fire. 
The poet Heine has a cynical phrase in 
which he mocks this fiery mission of the 
Christian Church. He speaks of the her- 
ald of the gospel as a “Knight of the Holy 
Ghost.” That figure of cynical mockery is 
the proudest boast of militant Christianity. 
Yes. The herald of the gospel is a Knight 
of the Holy Ghost. Through vital, radiant 
union of his own life and purpose with those 
of the Christ, he who stands in Christ’s 
stead will take on a fullness of power, a 
holy contagion of the Spirit that shall run 
as a burning, heavenly quickening into the 
darkest and most hopeless recesses of so- 
ciety and the human heart. Men in whose 
lives the very consciousness of God is per- 
ishing shall turn back with anointed faces 
to the Father’s house. Society shall be 
celestialized. Sin itself shall be dethroned. 
Humanity shall be lifted to the starry paths 
of the King. 




































































































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